Road safety
Road safety is a major issue with many Moreland residents.
Road trauma is a significant cause of injury and death in Moreland. Over the period 1989–90 and 1994–95, road trauma accounted for 29 per cent of injury related deaths reported to the coroner in Moreland.
Road statistics for Moreland
Moreland has the tenth highest number of road users killed or injured when road casualties are compared for the 31 metropolitan municipalities in Victoria over the period, 1994–98. In terms of overall numbers, Moreland has the seventh highest number of pedestrian casualties, eighth highest number of bicyclist casualties and ninth highest number of motorcyclist casualties. Significantly, in terms of usage numbers, Moreland ranks lower at nineteenth in terms of bicycle casualties when related to usage numbers.
Each year about eight people are killed, 164 seriously injured and nearly 540 suffer minor injuries on roads within Moreland. The cost to the community of these known casualty accidents is in the order of $45 million per year.
Many thousands more accidents occur in Moreland each year which are not reported in the statistics. These are minor property damage accidents, which do not involve injuries, or accidents that are not reported to the Police.
People at risk on the roads
Moreland’s vulnerable road users, pedestrians and bicycle users are over-represented in accident statistics and are most at risk of suffering serious injury or death if involved in an accident. Many of those injured are local residents, with the vast majority of road users injured who are pedestrians and bicycle riders living within five kilometres of their accident's site (that is most likey a resident of Moreland).
The road users and community groups most "at risk" of an accident in Moreland are
- pedestrians
- cyclists
- older road users
- children, particularly those aged 12 years and under, and
- young adults.
