The state government are urging motorists to eliminate risky driving behaviour ahead of the Christmas holiday season.
Launching a new road safety campaign on Wednesday, Road Safety minister Liza Harvey said the new drink driving campaign ‘Only A Little Bit Over’ reinforced that drink driving is dangerous and juvenile behaviour.
Ms Harvey said although all motorists had something to learn from the campaign, it would target young men.
“More than 80 per cent of people killed or seriously injured in alcohol-related crashes were men and they need to understand that it’s not just a matter of losing your licence – you could lose your life or kill someone else,” she said.
“Recent statistics show about a quarter of fatal crashes were related to drink driving and that should be a wake-up call to anyone who thinks being even a little bit over the limit is okay.”
The minister said WA had seen a declining trend in drink driving incidents since 2008 but the government would remain relentless in reducing this further.
In 2015 Fairfax Media used the Arrive Alive road safety campaign in a bid to reduce the amount of lives lost on WA roads.
Between January and October 2015, Western Australia was the only state or territory in Australia to have less road fatalities than in the same period last year.
As of December 6, 152 lives have been lost – 72 in metropolitan areas and 80 on country roads.
In 2014, 184 lives were lost in WA.
The state government have also re-launched their motorbike campaign after 44 motorcyclists and passengers were killed on WA roads last year.
“After intense education campaigns this year, we have seen about half the number of people killed in motorcycle crashes in 2015 but there are still many families who will be without a loved one this Christmas because of road trauma,” Mrs Harvey said.
She also said the road safety campaigns were part of a major $4 million education program funded through the Road Trauma Trust Account.
