NEW CAMPAIGN TO SAVE COUNTRY LIVES ON COOTAMUNDRA ROADS
December 5, 2017
Member for Cootamundra, Steph Cooke MP, today announced the first ever comprehensive road safety education campaign to target regional NSW in an all-out effort to spread the critical message that too many country people are dying on the state’s roads.
Saving Lives On Country Roads aims to highlight the hidden crisis unfolding almost daily on the state’s regional road network, a crisis which is devastating families and local communities.
The campaign is also designed to kick start a new conversation in the country by challenging the ‘yeah but!’ attitude of excuses many drivers make to justify taking deadly risks on our roads like speeding, drink and drug driving, driving tired and not wearing seatbelts.
Ms Cooke highlighted the toll on the Cootamundra electorate of this attitude to driving.
“It’s quite shocking – from 2012 to 2016, 544 people were seriously injured in accidents on roads in the Cootamundra electorate and 57 people lost their lives. That’s four times the state average.”
Ms Cooke knows only too well the aftermath of road traffic accidents.
“My own mother was terribly injured - she is one of those statistics,” Ms Cooke said.
“She suffered life-threatening injuries - she spent months in hospital and she has a permanent disability as the result of a high-speed car accident not too far from here in Junee, which is why I’ve chosen to talk about this issue here today.
“I’d love to think that no one will have to go through what my family has been through.
“A car veered onto the other side of the road and collected my mother’s car in the process, and we are living with the results of that every day.”
Ms Cooke also knows, through her parents, of the effects on victims’ families.
“My family business is in funeral directing,” she said,
“mum and dad for 40 years have been dealing with the aftermath, with families and communities left absolutely tragically impacted when people lose their lives on our country roads.
“This is an important campaign and my message is: slow down, pay attention to what you’re doing, don’t drink and drive, don’t use drugs, don’t text on your phone, and just remember that you have a personal responsibility when you’re on the roads to look after yourself, to look after those in the vehicle with you and to look after those that are oncoming.”
