Cumberland Council has launched a road safety awareness campaign urging motorists to ‘Don’t Be A Clown, Just Slow Down’.
The campaign encourages drivers to think smart, stay safe and slow down while driving in and around Cumberland, and also highlights alarming statistics.
In 2022, drivers who lived in the Cumberland Local Government Area (LGA) were involved in 1,145 crashes within the Sydney region. This included 406 crashes within the Cumberland LGA and 739 across Sydney.
Moreover between 2018-2022, 44 percent of crashes in the Cumberland LGA occurred on 50km/h speed limit roads, 27 percent on 60km/h roads and 14 percent on 70km/h roads.
Cumberland Mayor Lisa Lake said speeding was a major contributing factor to road fatalities and serious injuries.
“Current crash data from Transport for NSW shows that in the Cumberland LGA, the number of speed related crashes has not significantly reduced over the past three years. It is incumbent upon us to support and educate our community about safe driving practices,” said Mayor Lake.
“Furthermore, statistics show that from 2018 to 2022, 26 people were killed and 2,545 were injured on roads in Cumberland. Council has an unwavering commitment to safety, we can do more, and do better to improve these concerning statistics.”
The campaign will be translated into the top five languages in Cumberland which includes Arabic, Mandarin, Nepali, Cantonese and Tamil and will be distributed across Council’s community centres, services centres, facilities and throughout the Cumberland LGA.
In addition, Council is promoting the campaign across Variable Message Signs (VMS) at strategic locations within the LGA, and will also be working with both the Auburn and Cumberland Police Area Commands, community organisations and youth agencies to get the message across.
For more information visit: https://www.cumberland.nsw.gov.au/road-safety-cumberland-city
The Hard Facts on Road Safety
- In NSW, speed is a factor in 40% of road fatalities and 24% of serious injuries each year.
- 51% of all crashes occur on just 25 roads - 28% of which are on state and regional roads.
- The number of fatalities in 2022 has stayed on the same level of six as in the previous year – 6 too many.
- Vulnerable road users were involved in crashes in 2022: Motorcyclists 8%, Pedestrians 7.1%, Pedal cyclist 1.8%
- Over the last three year period (2020-2022) 38.7% occurred on Local roads, 36.6% on State roads and 24.7% on Regional roads.
