VICTORIA CUTS 2024/2025 ROAD REPAIRS BUDGET

TL:DR The Victorian road repair budget has been cut. Motorcycles are particularly sensitive to the conditions of the roads for making safe progress. Don’t just complain on social media. Take pics of road conditions and send them to your local member and others to help Victoria prioritise and target the limited repair budget.

 

THE PROBLEMS:

The article below was taken from the May 28^th 2024 South Gippsland Times and highlights that the cuts in Victoria's road repair budget. While budget cuts and cost of living pressures are reality, so is the deterioration in Victorian roads. This was confirmed by the recent Victorian Government Post Pandemic Road Safety Behaviours Inquiry and was the subject of a recent RACV survey. In a time of a spiking road toll, the road repair and road safety budget is perhaps not something that should be cut.

 

Motorcycles in particular are uniquely sensitive to road conditions for their safety, both in terms of their reliance on available traction and the condition of the road surface for continued stability. Road shoves, portholes, poor road repairs, polished road surfaces and other features can induce tank slappers, loss of traction or throw a bike off its line when cornering. The consequences could be devastating.

 

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

The VMC has been hearing complaints to the level that it is past time for individuals to exercise their democratic rights and powers. You have a voice. When you find an unsafe condition, pull over. Pull over to take pictures and get GPS coordinates. This is a critical step in harnessing a grassroots advocacy effort.

 

The next step is to raise the issue.

 

Raise the issue with Vicroads by calling 131170.  Get online and make reports of unsafe road conditions to Rural roads Victoria, Vicroads, TAC, Snap Send Solve. Write an email to your local councillor, your local members of parliament, the minister for Road Safety (Hon Melissa Horne), the minister for Transport and Planning (Hon Danny Pearson) as well as dropping an email to your local paper for good measure, and to the Motorcycle Community Engagement Panel at motorcycles@roads.vic.gov.au.  Even call up talk back radio, mentioning the road safety and infrastructure ministers by name (their regular media monitors reports will feed the mention to their team). CC the VMC.
 

All of these and other contact details are only a quick search away.

 

If you do make a post on social media, don't just vent your spleen, but tag in Vicroads, the local member, the TAC, etc (you may need to “like” the relevant pages first) so that it at least appears in their feed for someone to review. Or share the post to their pages.

 

HOW THIS HELPS:

If the same or similar reports keep being raised and appearing in department and ministerial briefing papers from multiple avenues, the noisy wheel has a chance of being oiled.

 

And then there’s a morbid reality of doing this. The formal reports will be on a database. If a reported unsafe road condition results in the worst happening, the coroner can investigate why the notified repair was delayed and hold Government to account.

 

Do all of the above to help the government and its agencies prioritise their limited resources.

 

Do all the above now and during winter when the weather conditions can be expected to make road conditions worse, impacting rider safety when better riding conditions return in spring.

 

RIDE SAFE:

Given Victoria's economic and road condition realities, riders will have to exercise extra care on the roads until we get to the other side of this. Keep the shiny side up.

 

= = = Some Resources = = =

https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/members/member-search

Melissa.Horne@parliament.vic.gov.au

Danny.Pearson@parliament.vic.gov.au

https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/traffic-and-road-use/report-a-road-issue