Charlotte Varcoe
ROAD safety will be at the forefront of school and sporting clubs with the Road Awareness Program (RAP) coming to the region.
The RAP program first began 20 years ago and has since developed into a statewide road safety awareness program consisting of speeches made by car crash survivors and more.
According to the Australian Department Infrastructure and Transport there were a total of 109 road deaths across the nation during March 2024.
This is 4.2 per cent higher than the average for March over the previous five years.
During the 12 months ending in March this year there were 1286 road deaths, an increase of 8.2 per cent.
Originally, the program was delivered to each Year 11 student in South Australia and has since expanded to sporting and community clubs.
RAP advocate and Metropolitan Fire Service (MFS) senior firefighter Joel Van Eeten said the program was also presented to correction services, workplaces, football clubs,sporting clubs and more.
“The aim of the road awareness program is to send the message to people that they do have a choice,” Mr Van Eeten said.
“They have the choice about what decision they make and how they are as a driver and whether they are paying attention but they do not have control of the consequences of that choice.”
He said the MFS typically attends about eight fatalities per year and about 100 car crashes.
“That is a far greater cost to the community and to people,” Mr Van Eeten said.
“Ultimately this can be avoided.”
He also encouraged the community not to refer to car crashes as ‘car accidents’ stating using the term accidents entailed there was no responsibility for what had happened.
“Even if somebody had t-boned someone at an intersection there is still some responsibility there,” Mr Van Eeten said.
“If they are paying attention they should see someone is going to do something and avoid that collision.”
Two car crash survivors will also travel to the region, taking part in the RAP presentations with a 10 minute talk on their experiences.
“They will talk about their experience of loss and what life was like before the crash and then what happened with their crash and life after,” Mr Van Eetan said.
“It is pretty sobering for a lot of people to hear it but I have heard their stories many times and it is still pretty profound how it has affected their lives 20 years later.”
He said car crashes had huge consequences for people and could affect their lives in a range of ways such as their life, job, friends and what they were capable of doing.
“These presentations are able to relate to young people and when you have someone visually standing in front of you that clearly has been affected by the trauma of a road crash it is like a slap in the face,” Mr Van Eetan said.
“You cannot help but pay attention to somebody because you know that what they are saying is 100 per cent accurate and they are talking from their own experience.”
“You can see and hear their stories and I think that is quite profound.”
Mr Van Eetan said he hoped community members would take responsibility for anything they did on the road following the RAP program and remember to be considerate and concentrate.
“The other message I would want to put out there to people is to put their phone away,” he said.
“The distraction of using their phones is the same as a drunk driver with people losing 80 per cent of their concentration when they look at their phone.”
The RAP will visit a range of schools around the South East as well as sporting and community groups.
