The Goldfields-Esperance region has united to highlight road safety in a National Road Safety Week campaign which starts on Sunday.
Goldfields-Esperance local governments — in partnership with WALGA’s Roadwise Program — have placed local issues and voices front-and-centre of an innovative new road safety campaign.
Prominent locals in the Shires of Laverton, Leonora, Menzies, Coolgardie, Dundas, Wiluna, Esperance and the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder have been pictured with messages encouraging road users to think about the way they drive and how their vehicles operate.
The Photo Voices campaign will be featured on the social media accounts of local governments and police stations throughout National Road Safety Week.
WALGA regional road safety adviser Michelle Blackhurst told the Kalgoorlie Miner the united Goldfields-Esperance campaignwas unique.
She said she went throughout the Goldfields and Esperance regions to capture the messages of locals spreading their opinion about road safety.
“It’s quite hard-hitting for the community because it’s their own people spreading the messages to them so that the message seems to get across better . . . so during National Road Safety Week, you’ll see posts from the police and from the Shire, with all different messages that they think are important in their community with regard to road safety,” Ms Blackhurst said.
She said as the local Shires already worked well together, they “understood the importance of collective impact”.
“With each community, we sat down, and we just discussed what they think was important to share with the community and the messages were created, based on what they felt the community needs to know,” Ms Blackhurst said.
“If they felt that, for example, people overtaking on a dusty road was a problem, then we would do photo voice about driving to the conditions or if they thought that speed was a problem, then we did a photo voice that talked about speed.”