Tasmanian Road Safety Council deems 2025 road toll as "terrible"

ABC NEWS (Australia)

While the Tasmanian Road Safety Council is working on a new strategy to reduce deaths and serious injuries, the families of road crash victims want motorists to recognise consequences of driving unsafely.

Transcript

00:00For 27 years, Natalia Pern's smile brightened her family and friends' lives.

00:09She was bright, bubbly, honest.

00:16She had a lot of friends, a massive amount of friends she had, and they were so good

00:20to ask her friends.

00:23But in March 2013, Natalia was killed in a head-on collision on the Midland Highway.

00:29The pain of her loss remains a daily challenge for her parents.

00:33She just blossomed into this beautiful young woman, who was very sure of herself in a lot

00:40of ways.

00:42She knew where she was going, she knew what she wanted to do, she loved to travel, and

00:47she's not here to do that anymore.

00:49Tasmania has averaged about 35 road deaths annually for the past decade.

00:54With just over four months left in the year, 29 people have already died on Tasmanian roads.

01:00We're having a terrible year in Tasmania this year for fatalities.

01:05The Road Safety Advisory Council says Tasmania is not on track to meet its target of fewer

01:11than 200 deaths and serious injuries on the roads by 2026.

01:16It's helping to develop a new road safety strategy for Tasmania.

01:19The main issues I think lay in its, not the strategy itself, but more so its implementation

01:27and investing more in the actions and activities under the strategy to make our roads safer.

01:34Transport and Infrastructure Minister Kerry Vincent says the State Government has spent

01:38more than 75 million dollars over the past five years on road safety measures.

01:43He's urging motorists to prioritise safe driving behaviours.

01:47Family members of crash victims say there's a sense of complacency among many motorists.

01:52Chris Pern says she will never stop talking about her beloved late daughter.

01:57We used to feel like it was taboo to talk her name, to mention her name.

02:01And I want people to talk to us about Natalia and the experiences they had with her because

02:07that's all we've got left now.

02:10A parent hoping others will be spared similar pain.

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