A strong partnership has been formed with Forbes and Lachlan Shires, as well as Roads and Maritime Services, since the employment of our shared Road Safety and Injury Prevention Officer (RSIPO) in 2002, under the Local Government Road Safety Program (LGRSP).
The LGRSP represents a collaborative approach for achieving road safety in NSW. Initiated in 1992, the program aims to involve local government and local communities in road safety planning and activities to contribute to the statewide effort of reducing the incidence and severity of crashes.
The RSIPO's role is to develop and implement local community road safety activities, with particular focus on behaviour-change programs. Over the past 15 years, it has become evident that RSIPO's have proved very successful in complementing local engineering solutions with the provision of local education and awareness campaigns. This ability to focus on local issues is the key to the success of the program.
Our current Road Safety Action Plan (2017 - 2020), was developed to address a variety of road safety issues arising from local crash data, Council priorities, NSW Police information, community feedback and the road safety priorities set out in the NSW Road Safety Strategy 2012 - 2021. These include:
- Heavy Vehicle Safety
- Child Restraints
- Driver Fatigue
- Young Driver Safety
- Drink Driving
- Safety around schools
- Speeding
- Fleet Safety
Council has adopted the 'Safe System' approach to improving road safety. This involves a holistic view of the road transport system and the interactions among roads and roadsides, travel speeds, vehicles and road users. It recognises that people will always make mistakes and may have road crashes—but the system should be forgiving and those crashes should not result in death or serious injury.
Council plays a key role in the 'Safe System'. We provide local road infrastructure, support local enforcement activities and provide the community with road safety messages and information. We deliver projects addressing local road safety issues to our community across the whole of the safe system; influencing safer people, roads, vehicles and speeds.
