Independent Chair of the Road Safety Council Professor D’Arcy Holman said in regional WA the majority of fatal crashes involved drivers who lived in the same local government area.

“This means that 60 per cent of the fatal crashes in rural areas involve drivers from your own community,” Professor Holman said.

“The most common crash type in regional WA is where a single vehicle runs off the road.”

Deaths and serious injuries in regional communities as a result of a road crash have a wide felt impact on the communities they and their family, friends and colleagues live and work.

“Another confronting statistic is that while only a quarter of WA’s population live outside the metropolitan area, they are accounting for half of the fatalities each year and this is a gross over-representation,” Professor Holman said.

“The Road Safety Council views the current level of death and serious injuries on WA roads as unacceptable.

“We are working towards preventing road trauma all together through a Safe System approach.

“The Safe System looks at all factors and elements of the environment in which a crash has or could occur.

“Towards Zero is the state’s road safety strategy and does not accept that any human being should die or be seriously injured on our roads.

“The success of the Safe System and the goals of Toward Zero depend on the willingness of us all to share responsibility.”