Road Safety Week

This month will see the return of Road Safety Week Queensland, which will run from August 16 – 20.  This year the theme of the week is ‘Education – making sure our young drivers know that their actions on the road can have direct consequences’.

Now, as the name suggests, Road Safety Week (RSW) runs for a week, but the task of educating young drivers seems to be a never-ending commitment – with Teewah Beach continuing to provide local police with plenty of ‘students’.

You may recall an article I wrote in October last year titled ‘Attitude is Everything’ in which I asserted that poor driver attitude was the major issue facing police on Teewah Beach.

Well, if the last couple of weekends (at the time of writing) are anything to go by, it’s still the major issue – with local police confronted by numerous displays of poor driving behaviour in the form of hoon driving, drink driving and dangerous driving.

Five young blokes will front Gympie Magistrates Court later this month – three for drink driving, one for dangerous operation of a motor vehicle and one for both driving without due care, and unlicensed driving.

Other motorists received traffic infringement notices for a variety of offences including ‘speeding’, ‘failing to wear a seatbelt’ and ‘not having proper control of their vehicle’.

All the drivers intercepted by police for committing offences were young males less than 25 years old. Sadly, many of these drivers have little regard for traffic or other laws and are actually proud of their efforts to break them – which not only puts themselves at risk, but also the other innocent drivers, campers and beach goers, who are simply trying to enjoy the area.

The Department of Transport and Main Roads website states that young drivers are over-represented in motor vehicle crashes for several reasons including; dangerous risk-taking behaviour, driver inexperience, alcohol and speeding – all of which are applicable to Teewah Beach.

Just add a bit of peer pressure to the mix and you have a bunch of blokes trying to outdo each other with acts of reckless stupidity that could easily end in a tragic outcome.

If you are the parent of a young driver can I urge you to speak to your child about safe driving practices before it’s too late.

As for Road Safety Week, you’ll see us out and about enforcing the road rules and trying to educate young drivers on the Cooloola Coast roads and beaches – like we do all year round…