Road safety community partnership in Queensland, Australia

Acknowledging the shortfall in addressing road safety, in May 2007 a coordinated approach to road safety commenced in Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia. A multi-agency approach led to the development of a road safety partnership project to reduce road trauma at the local government ‘grass roots’ level through infrastructure and behaviour changes initiatives. This paper traces the journey taken to introduce a road safety officer into the Moreton Bay Regional Council along with developing appropriate road trauma reduction strategies and actions across all travel modes at the local government level. The scheme has already won several awards. In April 2009, it was announced that the scheme would be introduced across Queensland through the regional road groups in the form of a road safety community partnership programme. With the development of a simple web-based template approach to developing road safety strategy and actions plans along with a road safety reference group providing peer support it is hoped that this approach is the dawn of a greater road safety focus for Queensland addressing the global issue of road trauma through local governments.