By XAVIER SMERDON
VICTORIA’S top road cop has called for tougher drinking and driving restrictions and more education for young drivers.
Assistant Commissioner Road Policing Rob Hill was in Altona last week to attend a meeting of road safety advocacy group, RoadSafe Westgate Community Road Safety Council.
Ass Comm Hill told Star that young drivers were more at risk of being killed or seriously injured on the roads.
“Absolutely the 18 to 25 age group is over represented in the statistics and that is a real concern,” Ass Comm Hill said.
“If you look at the data young people are involved in very few collisions when they are supervised and then we have a spike in the figures after they get their licence, which tapers off after about 18 months.
“That tells me that it is not about a lack of skill, but more about attitude and behaviour.”
A patron of the Fit 2 Drive program, which is a behavioural program that aims to raise awareness in young people of the risks involved with driving, Ass Comm Hill said he supported extending the age for which drivers cannot consume any alcohol to 25 years of age.
“There is medical research which shows that the frontal lobe of young men, which allows them to make rational decisions, is not fully developed until they are 25,” he said.
“Why compound the risks? I think we need to consider the extension of the graduate license system.
“This will save the lives of our kids.”
Ass Comm Hill said the main three ways young drivers could be kept safe was through enforcement, engineering – making sure the cars young people drive are safer – and education.
“Enforcement can only do so much,” he said.
“My younger daughter did an educated driver course of 120 hours and she is a better driver than my older daughter.”
The Victorian Community Road Safety Partnership Program has provided contribution funding to support RoadSafe Westgate in addressing local road safety issues within programs in the municipalities of Hobsons Bay, Maribyrnong, Melton and Wyndham.
