Deputy Commissioners and Assistant Commissioners with road policing
responsibility from across the country are coming together today, Wednesday 10 July, to participate in a Victoria Police hosted road policing forum.
The forum has been called as a direct response to the challenging year Australia is having on the roads and will allow police jurisdictions to discuss current challenges and short term solutions.
Requested by the Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton and South Australia Police Commissioner Grant Stevens the one-day forum will be co-chaired by Victorian Deputy Commissioner Specialist Operations Wendy Steendam and South Australian Deputy Commissioner Linda Williams.
Victoria Police DC Wendy Steendam said that this year most police jurisdictions from across the country were seeing a rise in the number of people losing their lives on the road.
"Both Victoria and South Australia are having a particularly tragic year on the road for 2019. In Victoria alone when compared to last year more than 57 additional people have not come home to their families," DC Steendam said.
"We see the benefit in all coming together to talk about the current trends and to see what else can be done as a direct response to this significant increase in fatalities."
Police will look at current road trauma trends, road users most at risk and what adjustments can be applied to our road policing models.
"While we are regularly in touch with other police jurisdictions, we needed to do something in the short term to try and address the horror year on the roads," South Australia Police DC Williams said.
"The best way to have this conversation quickly and effectively is to get the key people for road policing in a room together and workshop the issues and potential solutions."
The forum also allows police to hear key learnings from other jurisdictions and discuss how they can be applied in their own state.
Victoria is currently sitting at 161 lives lost for 2019, 57 more than this time last year.
