Criteria: Create a community-identity campaign that supports the following statement: Port Stephens – the place where our community looks out for one another and always travels at safe driving speeds.

Questions to help guide you:

• What is meant by ‘safe-speeds’? Hint: Watch the explainer video.
• What are the benefits of safe speeds for our community?
• How can we motivate others to take responsibility for their speed?
• What would be the key argument for you to maintain safe speeds?
• What would Port Stephens look and feel like if no one was killed or seriously injured from road crashes?
• Can you think of local examples of where people have reduced their speed to improve safety for themselves and others?
• What local comparisons can you make for people to better understand the importance of safe speeds for community safety?
• Tip: have a look at these ideas!
• Tip: refer to the information package to help you!

Additional Details and Prizes

Format: Your choice. All creative formats are accepted for Major Prize categories. Examples include rap, short film, poem, play, film script, artwork, song, photography, interview, statue, sculpture, mixed media, etc.

Time: Your submission should be no longer than 2 minutes, if in audio or video format.

Prizes: 2 x $2,500 on offer! Two prizes of $2,500 will be awarded with winners selected from entries across Campaign and Story categories.

Criteria: We invite you to share your personal story related to safe speeds. Sharing a story is a powerful way to shape others’ understanding about how unsafe driving speeds can cause harm. Hearing different perspectives can help us connect with each other.

Questions to help guide you:

• What is meant by ‘safe-speeds’? Hint: Watch the explainer video.
• Can you think of local examples of where people have reduced their speed to improve safety for themselves and others?
• Tip: have a look at these ideas.
• Tip: refer to the information package to help you!

Additional Details and Prizes

Format: Your choice. All creative formats are accepted for Major Prize categories. Examples include rap, short film, poem, play, film script, artwork, song, photography, interview, mixed media, etc.

Time: Your submission should be no longer than 2 minutes, if in audio or video format.

Prizes: 2 x $2,500 on offer! Two prizes of $2,500 will be awarded with winners selected from entries across Campaign and Story categories.

Criteria: Create a sign or slogan in response to the following statement: ➔ Safe speeds - what's in it for me?

Prize Details: 1 x $200

Criteria: Create a visual persuasive text to encourage everyone to stick to the 40 km/h school zone speed limit around your local school. Primary school students are encouraged to enter this category!

Prize Details: 1 x $200

Criteria: Record (or film) yourself answering the following sentence: "I'm asking you to slow down in my street/area because ..."

Video length: 10 seconds maximum

Only one entry per person allowed.

Prize Details: 2 x $200 random chance draw

In every country, road systems were built to give priority to motorised forms of transport (cars, trucks, motorbikes) compared to people walking and cycling.

Our vehicles carry the people we love and the things we value. But the road system does not separate fast-moving vehicles from our vulnerable human bodies. The force applied to the body in a road crash is directly related to the speed of the vehicle. Ideally, when things collide, we want humans to survive.

Speed is a community safety issue, as it's not just a driver that is put at risk, but everyone on the road in their vicinity. Think of it this way: it could be your family and friends in a vehicle, your friend’s mum or dad on a bike, your work colleague taking a ride on their motorbike, a neighbour in another vehicle, or a family from your local school walking next to the road.

The ripple impact of a crash for our community is far reaching and everyone has a role to play in creating safe communities.

Speeding increases the risk of being in a crash and how serious the outcome of a crash is when it occurs. We call this the likelihood and severity of a crash.

The faster you go, the greater your risk of a crash.

As speed increases, so does the likelihood of serious injury or death because:

• the driver has less time to react to a hazard
• the speed upon impact is greater
• the distance travelled before coming to a stop is greater

The higher the speed, the more energy is distributed on impact, which results in more harm.

• Your body has a limit to the forces it can withstand before injury occurs
• The force applied to the body in a crash is directly related to the speed of the vehicle
• Faster travel speed means greater forces applied to the body on impact which leads to greater injury
• 30km/h is internationally recognised as the maximum direct impact speed that a healthy adult can survive without experiencing serious injuries or dying

You can watch this explainer video first. It uses metaphors to explain what 'safe speeds' are.

The human body has a limit to the forces it can withstand before injury occurs. Higher travel speeds = greater forces applied to the body on impact = more devastating outcomes.

Source: Transport Accident Commission at https://www.meetgraham.com.au/

Meet Graham. Graham has bodily features designed to withstand the forces present in crashes. As you can see, humans do not possess these traits and our bodies are vulnerable in a crash.

Even small increases in speed can have severe consequences.

If you are in the path of an oncoming vehicle, the speed of that vehicle can be the difference between whether you live or die.

We have a greater chance of surviving a crash at lower speeds. As you can see from the image below, as a pedestrian, you have a 90% chance of surviving if a car travelling at 30 km/h collides with you. Your chance of survival decreases with faster travel speeds. There is a 60% chance of you surviving if a car is travelling at 40km/h, and only a 10% chance if travelling at 50km/h.

Source: Transport for NSW at https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/roadsafety/topics...

Think about it another way. What is your chance of surviving a fall from height? As seen in the image below, the damage to your body if you fall from the 3rd floor of a building is the same as a pedestrian colliding with a car that is travelling at 50 km/h.

Source: Auckland Transport Katoa, Ka Ora May 2022 at https://at.govt.nz/media/1992536/introducing-katoa...

It’s not just a driver that risks their own safety – it’s our fellow community members on the road too. This is one visual representation of Australian deaths since 1989. Click the source link to see others.

Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-25/every-road-death-in-australia-since-1989/9353794

At its core, ‘safe speeds’ are about reducing the possibility and level of harm to all members of our community.

The Local Voices Competition provides you with an opportunity to encourage your fellow community members to see the benefits of safe speeds.

Research clearly demonstrates the risks associated with higher travel speeds.

Your ability to stop for an unexpected hazard depends on how fast you go.

When responding to a hazard, your reaction time stays relatively the same. However, the amount of distance travelled depends on how fast you are going. The faster you go, the longer it takes you to stop. The combined effects of reaction and braking times in both wet and dry conditions is illustrated below.

Source: Transport for NSW Speed Fact Sheet at https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/system/files/media/documents/2023/speed-fact-sheet.pdf

Videos

• Eddie Wood discusses stopping distance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2DhxJbhb-Y
• “Slo Mo Professor Ian Johnston TAC” – a video showing the difference a reduction of 5km/h in travel speed can make when it comes to stopping a vehicle and the impact it creates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2kLz50Is3M

Examples of Stopping Distances

At 40 km/h, you’ll travel the height of an 8 story building.

At 50 km/h, you’ll travel the length of 3 buses lined up in a row or the equivalent of sprinting 2 lengths of a cricket pitch to score 2 runs.

At 60 km/h, you’ll travel approximately one third of the height of Tomaree Head before stopping. (You’ll travel this same distance before you even react to a hazard when travelling at 80km/h.)

At 80 km/h, you’ll travel further than the length of Wanda Beach Jetty before coming to a stop.

Small changes can make a big difference

Reducing travel speeds, even by just small amounts, can bring considerable road safety benefits to everyone.

Source: National Road Safety Partnership Program: https://www.nrspp.org.au/knowledge-centre/?resource-category=all&type=quick-facts

A 1 km/h decrease in average vehicle speed reduces deaths by around 4%. A 1 km/h increase in average speed increases deaths by a similar amount.

Speed plays such a significant role because this influences the crash likelihood, and the severity outcome of any given crash – regardless of its cause.

Here are some Australian examples of how speed reductions have improved safety and reduced injury:

Source: Global Road Safety Facility: Turner, B.M., Eichinger-Vill, E.M., El-Samra, S., Adriazola-Steil, C., Burlacu, A.F. (2024). Guide for Safe Speeds: Managing Traffic Speeds to Save Lives and Improve Livability; World Bank: Washington, DC, USA. Download from https://www.globalroadsafetyfacility.org/speed-man...

There are many benefits to health and wellbeing when we reduce speed.

Lower speeds bring additional benefits including:

• reduced emissions
• lower fuel use
• less noise
• increased opportunity to walk or cycle (bringing their own benefits through improved physical and mental health)
• increased social connections, and
• smoother (and even quicker) traffic flow.

Source: Global Road Safety Facility

Any drawbacks from speed reduction are greatly outweighed by the benefits.

In some cases, there may be drawbacks due to increased journey times, especially over very long distances. However, these increased times are often greatly over-estimated, and the other benefits from reduced injury, pollution, noise, and other factors mean that the costs to society are far better overall from the reduction in speed.

Source: Global Road Safety Facility

Speed management is complicated, and our assumptions on this topic are not always correct.

There are many myths when it comes to speed change, including that speed change won’t have much impact on safety; that the reduction will cripple the economy; and that speed cameras are not for safety, but rather to raise revenue. All of these have been proven false.

Research has identified that although crashes are caused by many factors, speed is the greatest contributor to how serious the injury outcome will be.

Good speed management has been shown to produce positive economic benefits to society, especially through reduced injury costs, but also through reduced fuel consumption and improvements in emissions.

Speed camera locations are selected due to their high crash locations, and there is a strong safety improvement at locations where they are installed. The revenue often goes towards further road safety improvements.

The Global Road Safety Facility has a Speed Management Hub that contains lots of information and research evidence about the link between speeding and poor road safety outcomes. More information here: https://www.globalroadsafetyfacility.org/speed-man...

Reductions in speed do not usually result in massive differences in journey times.

Research shows that we often over-estimate the impact from a speed limit change. In many cases, the journey time increase is minimal.

This is because our journeys often occur at speeds lower than the current speed limit, due to congestion and the need to slow or stop at intersections in urban areas; and due to poor quality roads in rural areas. In many cases, the change in speed limit may occur for only a small part of the journey we take, meaning that speeds remain unchanged for much of the trip.

At worst, the increase in journey time may be just a few seconds per kilometre – a very small price to pay for safer travel.

Source: Global Road Safety Facility Turner, B.M., Eichinger-Vill, E.M., El-Samra, S., Adriazola-Steil, C., Burlacu, A.F. (2024). Guide for Safe Speeds: Managing Traffic Speeds to Save Lives and Improve Livability; World Bank: Washington, DC, USA. Download from https://www.globalroadsafetyfacility.org/speed-man...

Another myth is that the public don’t want lower speeds, but instead want to drive faster.

When we explain to people the reasons for making change and the benefits of speed change, we find that there is strong support for this change.

Surveys conducted with local residents find consistent support for safer speeds and improved safety, especially at locations where they know there is risk.

There is sometimes initial reluctance for change, as many are unaware of the benefits, or concerned about negative impacts. However, following such change, the level of support usually increases substantially as road users notice the benefits, and realise that there are very few negative outcomes from the change.

Source: Global Road Safety Facility

The film competition provides an opportunity to help be the change you want to see in your community!

Speeding and drink driving can carry the same level of risk.

There is misalignment in our understanding of the risks associated with speeding and the risks associated with drink driving. There is also misalignment in our level of acceptance of enforcement for these 2 risky behaviours. For example:

• 98% support for drink driving enforcement but only 65% support for point-to-point speed enforcement (NSW Survey, 2024).
• Your crash risk doubles when driving:
  • with Blood alcohol concentration of 0.05%
  • at 65km/h compared to 60km/h on urban roads ¹.

Source: ¹Haworth, Ungers, Vulcan,& Corben (2001). Evaluation of a 50km/h default urban speed limit for Australia, Monash University Accident Research Centre, National Road Transport Commission.

Want to find out more?

• This short video summarises many of the key myth busting points: https://www.globalroadsafetyfacility.org/news/new-explainer-video-speed-management-myths
• The Speed Management Hub has a section specifically for Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), including a section on common myths or misperceptions about speeding: https://www.roadsafetyfacility.org/faq
• “Speeding hurts us all – Speed management myths” at: https://vimeo.com/739920057
• “Speeding hurts us all – impacts are long-lasting” at: https://vimeo.com/647015003?autoplay=1&muted=1&stream_id=Y2xpcHN8MTMxNTYzMzUzfGlkOmRlc2N8W10%3D
• Myth busting fact sheets: https://safesystemsolutions.com.au/resources/

Community attitudes are important for community shifts in behaviour.

Road safety attitudes and behaviours have changed in Australia. There are many good examples of this already – seatbelt use, helmet use, drink driving. Societal attitudes towards these things have changed substantially.

Drink driving is no longer socially acceptable in Australia. The same could be said for smoking. A key ingredient was the change in what the community accepted or demanded. Can you imagine people today accepting smoking on planes, in trains, in buses, in offices?

Australia is recognised as a world leader in road safety because of many important, lifesaving interventions that have seen the number of road deaths significantly decrease since the 1970s. The graph below summarises Australia’s success. However, Australia has not been doing so well recently. Australia is out of step with setting safe and survivable speed limits, compared to many other places.

Source: https://www.roadsafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/...

People here do want speeds to be managed to keep them safe.

• Transport for New South Wales receives approximately 1,400 requests each year for new speed camera locations.
• The NSW town of Clunes campaigned strongly to save their speed camera. You can read about it here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-02/village-win...
• Each road user is a friend or family member of our community. The ripple impact of road trauma is far reaching. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-25/every-road-death-in-australia-since-1989/9353794
• Your fellow Port Stephens residents do support safe speeds:

Here’s an article about the 2020 speed limit reduction on Cabbage Tree Road, Tomago:

Source: Newcastle Herald – 30 July 2020 at https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/6857011/p...

Source: Newcastle Weekly – 29 August 2024 at https://newcastleweekly.com.au/speed-zone-review-r...

People are demanding to move around their community safely.

If we don’t know what’s safe, how can we demand it? Around the world, lots of communities are demanding safer cars, safer laws, safer streets, safer neighbourhoods, and safer speeds.

• 30km/h zones in urban areas are part of a global movement based on scientific research to reduce road traffic injuries.
• Introducing 30km/h zones has been limited in many cases by a lack of political will.

Examples of community groups that have been established to call for safer streets by implementing survivable speed limits.

Australia: 30 Please – www.30please.org

United Kingdom: 20s Plenty for Us – www.20splenty.org

Check out these other examples of safe speed campaigning from everyday people:

• https://reactforchange.org/2023-australia

Information about how other countries are setting survivable speed limits can be found in the Guide for Safe Speeds, produced by the Global Road Safety Facility found here: https://www.globalroadsafetyfacility.org/publicati...

Speed limits are not set or changed to annoy or inconvenience people. They are designed to keep you safe.

Transport for NSW is responsible for setting and managing speed limits in NSW. Speed zoning aims to minimise harm by reducing the severity and likelihood of a crash.

In the past, speed limit setting gave priority to motorised forms of transport, but humans are not designed to survive high speed crashes. We have new ways of thinking about appropriate, safe, and survivable travel speeds. Speed limit setting now considers all road users, not just car movements.

The Movement and Place Framework considers the needs of people and places. It ensures roads, streets and public spaces are responsive to the diverse needs of our communities now and into the future. The more localised place-making with short trips, the better suited for public amenity. For places of high movement and less place-making, the more suited to transport corridors, as the image below depicts:

Source: https://www.movementandplace.nsw.gov.au/place-and-...

With this in mind, a range of principles are used to help set speed limits:

Principle 1 – Speed zones should be set to minimise harm, i.e. reduce the likelihood of a crash and the severity of a crash.

Principle 2 – Speed zones should align with surrounding environments to support liveability, amenity, and successful places.

Principle 3 – Speed zones should maximise safe, efficient, and reliable travel to reflect the nature and standard of the road infrastructure and its surrounds. In urban environments, the surroundings are likely to dictate a lower speed than non-urban environments, due to presence of vulnerable road users, closer spacing of intersections and traffic signals. Where high-speed travel is being considered, appropriate infrastructure and clearances should be in place to decrease the severity and likelihood of trauma.

Principle 4 – Speed zones should be self-explanatory, consistent and support compliance. In short, you shouldn’t need a sign for someone to understand the speed they should be going.

Principle 5 – Speed zones can lead to more sustainable transport choices. For example, lowering speeds may encourage more people to walk. Mode shift can reduce congestion and the transport sector’s emissions intensity, improve air quality, and support better health and wellbeing.

Principle 6 – Opportunities should be optimised to improve road user understanding of travelling at safe speeds.

A speed limit is considered a maximum travelling speed – you do not have to travel at the posted speed limit. Speeding is not just travelling above the designated speed limit, but also driving too fast for the conditions (e.g. wet weather and curves in the road).

Transport for NSW receive many suggestions for speed zone reviews. It takes time to review and assess requests. You can look at the Speed Zoning Standard, Movement and Place Framework and submit your suggestion here: https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/roadsafety/topics-tips/speeding/speed-zones-and-speed-management

Examples of different speed zones

10 km/h shared zones exist to prioritise pedestrian movement. Pedestrians have right of way in a shared zone, such as in Magnus and Stockton Streets in Nelson Bay Town Centre:

You’ll find 40 km/h speed zones in High Pedestrian Activity Areas (HPAA), such as those found in the town centres of Raymond Terrace, Nelson Bay and Anna Bay (photo below). School Zones operate at 40 km/h between 8-9:30am and 2:30-4pm.

A 50 km/h default speed limit applies to all built-up urban areas across NSW, unless a lower limit is posted. Changes in or out of a default area are always signposted.

Image: Copyright State of New South Wales (Transport for NSW)

The reasons why people speed are varied and complex and we all react differently to different types of emotional appeals. Some people might fear that their actions can hurt others. Other people might fear losing their licence, and others may fear social disapproval from their peers. Changing behaviour is not as simple as inducing fear about something and expecting that this will lead to change.

Positive emotions have a place in road safety communications.

For some people, the threat of a legal consequence is enough to make them change. For other people, it might be the threat of social disapproval from people important to them and might help them to change their behaviour.

Positive emotions, including humour and pride, may offer alternative persuasive options. No single approach represents the ‘silver bullet’ but using positive emotions can offer another potential means to gain people’s attention.

Advertisements cannot persuade us to change if they are not engaging and if we don’t attend to them in the first instance.

Other emotions, such as humour, need to be used cautiously and are likely to vary in their relative effectiveness for different audiences.

Road safety campaigns traditionally used fear-based information to change behaviour. Graphic images of road crashes and seriously injured or deceased people were used because it was thought that these strongly negative, fear-based messages would encourage safer driving.

Over time, research has shown that fear-based messages have produced mixed results. Fear can become too great, and the persuasiveness of a message can be diluted. People might ‘tune out’ (reject the message) because of the fear-appeal used.

Crash, not accident.

Language shapes the way we view things. We use the term ‘crash’ to describe what it is – causal factors leading to an outcome. Naming a crash an ‘accident’ denies accountability and the possibility that it could have been preventable.

Sources:

• Lewis, I., Watson, B., & White, K. M. (2008). An examination of message-relevant affect in road safety messages: Should road safety advertisements aim to make us feel good or bad? Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 11(6), 403-417.
• Lewis, I., Watson, B., White, K. M., & Tay, R. (2007). Promoting public health messages: Should we move beyond fear-evoking appeals in road safety? Qualitative Health Research, 17(1), 1-14.
• Lewis, I., Ho, B., Watson, B., White, K. M., & Elliott, B. (2017). Insights into targeting young male drivers with anti-speeding advertising: An application of the Step approach to Message Design and Testing. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 103, 129-142
• Lewis, I., Watson, B., & Tay, R. (2007). Examining the effectiveness of physical threats in road safety advertising: The role of the third-person effect, gender, and age. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 10(1), 48-60.
• Lewis, I., Watson, B., & White, K. (2013). Extending the explanatory utility of the EPPM beyond fear-based persuasion. Health Communication, 28(1), 84-98.
• Lewis, I., Watson, B., & Tay, R. (2007). Examining the effectiveness of physical threats in road safety advertising: The role of the third-person effect, gender, and age. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 10(1), 48-60.
• Lewis, I., Watson, B., & White, K. (2013). Extending the explanatory utility of the EPPM beyond fear-based persuasion. Health Communication, 28(1), 84-98.

You can find a variety of other information below:

• Vision Zero – the idea that everyone deserves to arrive safely: https://towardszero.nsw.gov.au/campaignsSd
• Information on Australia’s road safety statistics: https://acrs.org.au/resources/statistics/
• The following guidance documents can be found at https://www.globalroadsafetyfacility.org/guides-and-manuals

The George Institute for Global Health (University of New South Wales) is partnering with seven local governments in NSW to find innovative ways to reduce speeding-related road trauma. Port Stephens Council is delighted to be one of the participating local government areas.

Speeding is major risk on our roads. This study is using ideas from our community to encourage safe travel speeds. It also seeks to encourage our community to better understand the risks associated with various speeds, the many benefits of safe speeds, and the misperceptions about safe travel speeds. Ultimately, the project seeks to encourage our community to demand safe travel speeds so that we can all use the road without harm.

Citizens from Port Stephens Council participated in a Community Jury in late 2024. The jury was presented with a large range of evidence on the topic of speeding, safe travel speeds, and speed management from external and local experts. Jury members cross-examined these experts and deliberated over several sessions to respond to these questions:

1. How can we achieve acceptance of, and generate demand for, safe speeds?

2. What is the most useful and compelling information for increasing understanding about safe speeds?

3. What do you believe are the most effective ways to create a shift in public attitudes toward safe driving speeds?

At the end of the jury process, the Community Jury gave recommendations to the Port Stephens Council to address those questions. Council will implement at least one recommendation, and The George Institute for Global Health will evaluate changes in community attitudes to speeding, levels of demand for safe speeds in our area, and changes in travel speeds over a 6-month period in 2025.

The Education and awareness of safe speeds in communities project is funded by the Australian Government through the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts.

More information here: https://www.georgeinstitute.org/our-research/resea...