Victoria Police Road Safety Strategy

Foreword from Assistant Commissioner, Road Policing Command

Road trauma has a devastating impact on the Victorian community.

In 2023 on average, five people were killed each week, eight people were hospitalised every day, and many suffered life changing catastrophic injuries.

As an organisation that is charged with the responsibility of protecting our community, we simply cannot accept this.

This level of trauma also has a major impact on our members who attend these scenes or are required to deliver the horrendous news to the families and loved ones of those who experience road trauma. This trauma shatters communities, often irreparably.

Road policing has historically been viewed as the domain of highway patrols and Road Policing Command personnel. However, we all need to make a significant contribution to keeping Victorians and visitors safe on our roads.

We need to embed road policing as part of our everyday business, instead of being apart from it or something we only do for special operations.

Reducing road trauma requires a concerted effort from our entire workforce.

This strategy will be strongly focused on general deterrence and how general duties police officers, detectives and other specialist members can all contribute to this within their existing roles.

Increasing the number of vehicle intercepts and preliminary testing sites for drugs and alcohol greatly enhances our visibility in support of general deterrence and is proven to positively influence the behaviour of road users.

This strategy builds on the previous strategy’s guiding principles of Engage, Enhance and Enforce as concepts to achieve our strategic objectives. Prevent and Deter have been included as additional principles of our strategic approach.

The focus areas of the previous strategy remain as they continue to be the main contributors to road trauma.

Specific examples of policing activities for each of these principles and areas of focus are included in this strategy.

As we look ahead to the next four years, our road policing focus for delivering exceptional services for the community is aligned with the organisational Keeping You Safe: Victoria Police Strategy 2023–2028.

We will provide a highly visible police presence on Victorian roads to support general deterrence and respond to road related events.

Additional capability and enhanced technology will ensure our people are equipped and confident to effectively enforce against speed, distraction, impaired driving, seatbelts and restraints, risks on rural roads, high risk driving and unauthorised driving.

We will place a renewed focus on the category of offending that currently and historically contributes to approximately two thirds of all road trauma: single acts of non-compliance.

This includes low level speeding, low range drink driving, failing to obey traffic signs and signals, distraction caused by mobile phones and seatbelt non-compliance.

There appears to be a growing tolerance among the community that this behaviour is acceptable. This behaviour is harming road users at an increasing rate and we must intervene at every opportunity.

Our objective for every vehicle intercept or engagement with road users should be to try and positively influence their behaviour for the long term. Our presence, active enforcement and engagement with the community has never been more important.

This strategy recognises the complexity of road trauma reduction and the need for collaborative approaches with our road safety partners.

An extensive road network of more than 200,000 kilometres and an increasing population are just a few of the challenges we face to reduce road trauma.

This strategy will leverage existing and emerging technological enhancements, working with community, government and business as appropriate, to help us overcome these challenges.

Ultimately, the most effective counter measure to addressing road trauma will be an unwavering commitment from our entire workforce to not accept the status quo and for each employee to contribute to making Victorian roads safer.

Glenn Weir APM
Assistant Commissioner, Road Policing Command
Victoria Police

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