Safer roads and roadsides
A major infrastructure program will deliver unprecedented levels of investment to further improve roads and roadsides across Victoria, reducing crashes and saving lives.
Improvements to road design and infrastructure will reduce the incidence of the most common types of road crashes – those that cause the most fatalities and serious injuries – and provide a much safer environment for all road users in Victoria.
Safety improvements will be delivered as a result of the Victorian Government’s continuing high levels of investment in the state’s road network, including new high quality roads and connections, duplication of major roads and upgrades to key city and regional arterial roads. Alongside these activities, the arrive alive 2008 - 2017 strategy will deliver unprecedented investment of $650 million in roads and roadside infrastructure to give Victorian road users the highest standard of safe travel conditions they have ever experienced.
| Area of action |
Actions |
| Infrastructure |
- Introduce a major infrastructure program, focusing on improving safety along high risk stretches of road.
The program will focus on improving infrastructure to reduce the incidence of the most common types of crashes:
- side impact crashes: implement safety improvements at intersections, such as skid resistance treatments, lighting improvements, and vehicle activated signs and conversion of Y intersections to T intersections
- run-off-road crashes: install roadside barriers, shoulder sealing and rumble lines along road edges, and remove roadside objects and hazards (such as trees and poles)
- head-on crashes: install centre-road tactile lining, centre-road wire rope barriers and overtaking lanes
- rear-end crashes: undertake skid resistance treatments.
- Carry out improvements at high risk intersections, including rail crossings, through the application of advance warning systems, such as rumble strips.
- Implement a Greyspot Program to reduce crash risk at potentially high risk intersections, targeting outer metropolitan and rural intersections.
- Continue to improve sites under the Statewide Blackspot Program.
- Deliver the Meeting Our Transport Challenges infrastructure program to progressively upgrade safety at level crossings in Melbourne and provincial Victoria. Measures to improve rail level crossing safety will include:
- installation of automated advance warning signs at highway and high volume sites
- installation of rumble strips to alert motorists that they are approaching rail level crossings
- reduction of speed limits at high risk, high road speed rural rail level crossings
- improving line of sight at level crossings including vegetation removal
- trial the use of camera technology to improve compliance and deter unsafe behaviour at level crossings.
- Deliver targeted infrastructure improvements to reduce crashes caused by unsafe behaviour and to increase safety for specific groups of road users. These improvements will include:
- improved speed advisory signs and non-distracting roadside signs
- improved rest stop facilities
- strategic land use planning, road design, signs and facilities that cater for older road users, pedestrians and children
- targeted motorcycle safety treatments
- an extended bicycle network
- improved interaction between trams and buses and other road users, through treatments such as improved lighting, greater visibility of tram stops and higher levels of crash protection at tram and bus stops.
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| Research and data |
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