2024 Riverina PD road death toll

Riverina Highway Patrol inspector Ben Smith reflects on the region's 2024 road death toll.

Transcript

00:00Every fatal collision, I mean we'd love it to be zero, every fatal collision is traumatic

00:06to the people involved and the first responders and the families that are without that person.

00:10And yes, it is a low number this year and put that down to the hard work of many agencies,

00:17but particularly our team here, who've worked hard to be out there and be visible and detect

00:23these people that we share the road with that shouldn't be on the road.

00:27Within a few hours of Dr Demerit starting, we had that horrible bus crash on Vickery

00:33Highway, is there any update?

00:37A crash investigation have taken that matter, as far as I'm aware, and that's going to be

00:42a long and detailed investigation into that.

00:45What kind of toll do these fatalities have on police officers?

00:49Yeah, I guess it has an effect on them, but not only the police officers.

00:53I went to a collision on New Year's Eve at Gundagai where two vehicles had rolled over

00:57and I was pleased to see there was between 8 and 10 SES members, so they're volunteers

01:03from Gundagai, out there on their New Year's Eve, assisting the police who were stretched

01:08by doing traffic duties and they're also the rescue agencies, so they're cutting people

01:12out of cars, whether they're deceased or still alive.

01:15So it has its toll on all the emergency services and I particularly take my hat off to those

01:21volunteer agencies that time and time again, especially out here in the country, provide

01:26us with that service.