The Andrews Labor Government and the Transport Accident Commission are working Towards Zero with a new campaign demonstrating how Victoria can achieve major road trauma reductions.
Minister for Roads and Road Safety Luke Donnellan launched the next phase of the campaign at Docklands today, which modernises the TAC’s long-running 1994 Kombi campaign to illustrate how a similar scenario might play out with a safer road system.
The original Kombi ad featured a couple in a 1970's VW Kombi van driving overnight. The trip turns fatal when the driver falls asleep and veers into the path of an oncoming truck.
In the 2015 remake, the driver is in a modern five-star vehicle with a fatigue detection system and the road is treated with state-of-the-art safety infrastructure, including a centreline wire rope barrier to prevent vehicles crossing into oncoming traffic.
When the fatigue detection sounds, it prompts the driver to pull over and swap with his passenger. The scenario that in 1994 ended in two fatalities - now results in nothing more than a wake-up call.
The new campaign demonstrates how safer roads, safer vehicles and safer speeds can protect motorists from death or serious injury.
The campaign uses a Victorian-first centreline wire rope barrier which was installed on the Melba Highway near Yea as part of the Government’s $1 billion Safe System Roads Infrastructure Program.
Safer road infrastructure and safer vehicles are important components in Victoria’s rollout of the Towards Zero approach to road trauma reduction.
Towards Zero want to ensure that Victorians who make mistakes on our roads could be protected from death or serious injury by driving safer cars, on safer roads and at safer speeds.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Roads and Road Safety Luke Donnellan
“If we’re not aiming for zero, we’re saying to ourselves that there is an acceptable level of road trauma. The loss of just one person on our roads is simply one too many.”
“This campaign is about showing then and now. Safety improvements to ours cars and roads means a mistake that would have been fatal twenty years ago, can now have a much safer outcome."
“In 1994 when this ad was made we lost 378 people on our roads. Now achieving zero is within our reach, but only if we have safer road users, in safer cars, on safer roads and at safer speeds.”
Reviewed 19 August 2020