Safer Roads, Safer Queensland Forum 7

Summary and key themes

Date: Tuesday 18 May 2021

Place: TMR Conference Centre, 61 Mary Street, Brisbane

Background

On 18 May 2021, the Honourable Mark Bailey MP, Minister for Transport and Main Roads hosted the seventh Safer Roads, Safer Queensland forum in Brisbane. The focus of the forum was to encourage attendees to think differently about road trauma and invite them to provide their feedback on a draft strategic framework that will form the basis of the next Queensland Road Safety Strategy 2022-31.

The event was designed to bring new voices into the conversation with traditional transport sector stakeholders, to encourage a bold, innovative and collaborative approach to reducing road trauma over the coming decade.

The forum gathered close to seventy representatives from industry, peak bodies, government agencies, and research institutions to attend as audience members and to participate in workshop activities.

Minister Bailey opened the forum and spoke about the range of policy initiatives currently being delivered in Queensland to encourage safer on-road behaviour, including the next stage of work to deter in-vehicle distraction. This program of work will see the deployment of cameras that detect illegal mobile phone use and non-seatbelt use, as well as a trial of solutions that do not rely on punitive enforcement measures, such as vehicle phone awareness monitors. A series of speakers from TMR presented on the current context and challenges to reducing road trauma in Queensland, in particular over the coming ten years, along with the recently developed draft strategic framework.

Ben Marcus, Assistant Commissioner, Road Policing and Regional Support Command, Queensland Police Service (QPS), discussed the challenges of road safety from a police perspective, and Mr Peter Frazer from SARAH Group, delivered an acknowledgement of National Road Safety Week.

Following an hour of presentations, forum participants broke into four groups, each supported by a facilitator and scribe. Participants first discussed their overall impressions of the strategic framework, considered whether it had sufficient coverage, if the targets were ambitious enough, and if the guiding principles were appropriate.

After thirty minutes of general feedback, participants selected one of the four pathways outlined in the strategic framework and moved to that station to discuss the specific pathway content and to brainstorm potential action ideas for consideration in the first action plan. After one hour, participants were asked to choose a second pathway and repeat the exercise. The facilitator from each of the pathway stations reported back on the outcomes of their discussion to the full group at the end of the forum.

Where to from here

The Queensland Government sincerely thanks everyone who attended the forum for their time and contributions. The ideas put forward during the forum will inform the drafting of the full strategy and will be considered in the development of the next Queensland Road Safety Action Plan. Key themes, discussion points, and a sample of high level actions ideas are summarised below.

Key themes

Note: The following summary aims to capture the key discussion themes raised by a range of participants at the forum and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Queensland Government or all participants.

There was general agreement that due to Queensland's diversity and geographical spread that we need different approaches in different parts of the state, and localised solutions are welcomed.

Participants discussed the need to put people and public health first before the economy. There was general consensus that thinking of road trauma as a preventable public health problem will assist both in understanding its root causes and improving our messaging on road safety.

Participants welcomed the thinking that road safety is everyone’s responsibility and a shared approach is required. They also expressed a strong desire to link into other strategic agendas across government and discussed how and where initiatives might be joined up.

Vision zero was broadly supported as the only acceptable road safety target. However, the ten year horizon targets, which are proposed to align with the Australia's nationally endorsed targets of 50 per cent reduction in population fatality rate, and 30 per cent reduction in population serious injury rate by 2031, were contested. In particular, the serious injury target was seen as both too ambitious and not ambitious enough.

A greater focus or improved messaging should be provided on serious injuries to better resonate with people that the scale of impact is significant.

Inclusion of the places and spaces pathway was well received as it further emphasises the communities focus on the system side, and there was general agreement that better integration with land use planning, urban planning and transport was required.

Similarly, there was broad support for the emphasis on physical and mental health, though noting that further detail was required on mental health. Families were identified as key influencers, as was the importance of capability and capacity development at a community and local government level.

Action Ideas

The four breakout groups generated a range of high level action ideas to consider as part of the development of the first action plan under the new strategy. A sample of ideas is provided.

Summary of Action Ideas

Road environment pathway

• Improve planning for flexible travel options by mode and route, considering route technology and information systems.
• Integrate infrastructure for CAVI into road design as soon as possible.
• Extend infrastructure that provides a separation of modes to improve continuity of tracks/paths.
• Incentivise and consider regulating safe road user behaviour e.g. caravan licencing, time-based travel with caravans.
• Perceptual countermeasure research for all road users (e.g. guideposts).

Places and spaces pathway

• Review school access routes to ensure safe route for children getting to school.
• Introduce permanent speed reduction in school zones.
• Prioritising planning for walking and bike riding in new land use planning projects.
• Build speed information on trucks, schools, caravans, road trains into journey apps to highlight to drivers what users and experiences they will encounter along their journey.
• Review and simplify process of requesting speed limit reviews.
• Extend grants to Local Governments for speed limit reductions in areas with high place value.
• Review procurement policies for safer Heavy Vehicle use in construction.

Individuals pathway

• Enable data sharing across agencies: mental health and road safety requires a holistic approach and a more complete picture.
• Frame additional driver training as professional development and a requirement for driving for work, akin to a chainsaw / forklift ticket.
• Empathy development to be incorporated into educational messaging, incorporate into a multi-modal experience trial.
• Use workplace health and safety levers for safe road use. Look at workplaces and the culture of how incidents are investigated, reported, lessons learned, practices modified and so on. How can this be applied to our context?
• Workplace road crash injuries to be recorded and publicised more effectively.

Communities pathway

• Provide support to evaluate local programs to determine effectiveness.
• Identify community champions to drive local community road safety campaigns.
• Promote alternative forms of transport that are tailored to community needs.
• Support communities to identify issues and develop responses