Road Safety Week a timely reminder to stay safe on our roads

Road crash numbers are up across the Northern Beaches with 2019 statistics from Transport for NSW showing fatal and non-casualty crashes increasing and crashes causing injury remaining steady. It seems we aren’t getting the message to slow down and take care on our roads.

It's National Road Safety Week, and our team of Road Safety Officers want to send a message of caution, but also of positivity and hope to all road users. They are urging drivers, bicycle riders and pedestrians to adhere to the road rules, slow down, respect each other, remove distractions and look up and about when walking. Look out for not only yourself, but for your family and friends to ensure everyone gets home safe.

Last year there were 453 crashes on our roads which included four fatalities and 323 people being injured. 162 people were lucky enough to walk away with little or no injury. Across the board these figures were up from the previous year and are higher than other parts of greater Sydney and NSW.

In fact, 19.7% of local motorcyclists and their passengers were injured as a result of a road crash compared to 13.2% in greater Sydney.

Northern Beaches bicycle riders made up 9.3% of casualties, compared to 5.1% in greater Sydney and 4.2% in NSW.

And we had far more pedestrians injured on the Beaches with 13.9% as opposed to 9.7% in Greater Sydney and 7.1% in NSW.

We all need to do our bit to reduce the risk of road crashes. The best advice is to slow down and remove distractions. For tips on being a better driver, visit Roads and Maritime Service website.

To help keep road safety at the top of mind all year round, drop into any one of our Customer Service Centres and collect a free 2021 Road Safety calendar.

Northern Beaches Council has teamed up with five other northern Sydney councils - Ku-ring-gai, Hornsby, Lane Cove, North Sydney, and City of Ryde Councils to produce this attractive and informative wall calendar that features some fascinating – yet still deadly serious - road safety messages.

This year’s calendar is a ‘best of’ collection, celebrating some of the favourite road safety messages from years gone by.

Let’s all work together to be better drivers and reduce the stats this year.