Media release – Road Safety Advisory Council, 26 July 2021
Strong Governance for Road Safety Advisory Council
Former Deputy Police Commissioner Scott Tilyard has commenced as the new Chair of the Tasmanian Road Safety Advisory Council, bringing a renewed focus on road safety initiatives, improving driver behaviour and tangible actions.
Well known and highly regarded across the state, Mr Tilyard served with Tasmania Police for more than 40 years. He also played a vital and high-profile role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic as Deputy State Controller.
“As Chair of the Road Safety Advisory Council, I am committed to improving road safety in Tasmania and reducing the harm and devastation that road crashes cause. Many challenges still lay ahead in our journey towards our target of zero serious injuries and deaths on Tasmanian roads.
“But I have seen how Tasmania successfully curbed the COVID-19 pandemic through high community engagement, commitment and compliance. While we know that we will never be able to eliminate human mistakes, we can do more to mitigate the damage to our fragile human bodies when mistakes do occur.
“With road safety, we know what works and we have a plan to saves lives and reduce injuries. With a safe, system wide approach we can improve our roads with safety treatments, promote safer vehicles and make sure we have appropriate speed limits, but to ensure our road users are safer, we need the community’s support and commitment.
“We all have a part to play in making a zero road toll a reality. High risk behaviours put others at risk on our roads, but the seemingly little things also make a difference. Don’t go that couple of kilometres over the speed limit, don’t pick up your phone, give your full attention to the driving task. Road safety is everybody’s responsibility.
“I look forward to playing my part as Chair of the Council to work towards our vision of making zero happen.”
The Road Safety Advisory Council provides advice to government on effective road safety measures and oversees the Towards Zero Tasmanian Road Safety Strategy and allocation of the Road Safety Levy.
Media release – Michael Ferguson, Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, 29 July 2021
Road safety focus in Tasmania
The new Chair of Tasmania’s Road Safety Advisory Council, Scott Tilyard, has started in the role and will oversee a renewed focus on road safety and encouraging motorists to drive safely.
Speeding is reckless and can lead to serious injuries and deaths on our roads.
With the new Chair now in place, we are pleased to announce that the Tasmanian Government is set to introduce more mobile speed cameras to our roads in an effort to drive down the road toll.
Far too many crashes are the result of speeding and it accounts for far too many deaths on our roads, all for the sake of saving a few seconds or because a driver is impatient.
In the last five years alone more than 370 deaths and serious injuries have been caused where speed is a factor and it is not acceptable that some drivers not only choose to risk their own safety but also put everyone else at risk.
Based on the advice of the RSAC, the Tasmanian Government through the Department of State Growth will start a procurement process in the coming month for an initial four state-of-the-art mobile speed cameras, focussed on high-crash locations.
The initial deployment strategy is currently being finalised and our longer term vision is for a comprehensive network of speed cameras to cover more locations and deter more reckless speeding behaviour.
Around the nation and across the world, mobile speed cameras have proven one of the most effective ways of changing bad driver behaviour and making speeding motorists slow down.
While we don’t want anyone to be fined for speeding, we won’t hesitate to issue infringements when it is detected. If you do the right thing, it won’t cost you anything.
Pending the procurement process, we expect to see the first of the new mobile speed cameras on our roads by the end of the year.
