The lives lost on Victorian roads as of midnight August 14, is up 15.2% compared to the same date last year.
For context 132 lives were lost on Victorian Roads at that date last year and now that figure is already up a further twenty.
Since 2016 the least number of deaths on Victorian roads occurred in the lockdown year of 2020 but as a state there were still 211 road fatalities.
Last year in total the state lost 232 lives on Victorian roads and with everyone back on the roads with no lockdowns it looks like that figure will increase in 2022.
According to VicRoads’ “Fatal Crashes – Lives Lost, Last 5 Years to Date” dataset, which includes the lives lost from 2015 to 2020, males accounted for 73% of lives lost on Victorian roads.
Even more shocking is the age group that were involved in road fatalities the most, 18-year-olds. This wasn’t just the case for males as females also experienced the most lives lost on Victorian roads in the 18-year-old age group.
In terms of Local Government Areas (LGA) in this dataset, the most lives were lost on roads in the LGA of Geelong followed by Yarra Ranges and the Mornington Peninsula.
It also should be noted that country Victoria accounted for 44% of lives lost on Victorian roads in this dataset.
Higher speeds occur in country Victoria due to the default speed limit being 100 kilometres per hour outside of built-up areas.
This means when there is no speed limit sign and drivers are in non-built-up areas, they are likely to be travelling at much higher speeds than if they were in Melbourne.
Country roads are also less lit up at night which presents a further risk when driving in the country compared to Melbourne.
Of the 1264 deaths recorded in the VicRoads dataset, 610 were drivers, 207 were passengers, 205 were motorcyclists and 188 were pedestrians. 61 cyclists and 3 pillion passengers were also recorded.
Behind these numbers are all people who’ve lost their life on Victorian roads, and coming into the holiday season of 2022 it may very well surpass last year for road fatalities.
