Gateway Speed Prevention Project
Blue Mountains City Council has been working with Police and the RTA to reduce speeding offences. The Gateway Project is a unique partnership between local area councils, Police and the RTA. It has become a successful example of cross sectoral and cross-regional collaboration to help address an issue that affects all our lives by encouraging safe driver behaviour on our roads.
The Gateway Project is so named as the Blue Mountains region is the 'gateway' between wider Sydney and the state's west. Gateway Police enforcement operations are regularly conducted and result in a significant number of speeding fines issued to motorists in the Blue Mountains, Hawkesbury and Chifley areas. The Gateway Project also involves local Police conducting over hundreds of random breath tests, in conjunction with speed enforcement weekends, generally resulting in several charges being laid.
Speeding is one of the biggest road safety issues on Blue Mountains roads, particularly the Great Western Highway. Regular weekend Police enforcement is intended as a reminder to all drivers that if you speed you are likely to get caught. A point not missed by the hundreds of motorists fined for speeding over the weekend operations.
Blue Mountains City Council's Road Safety & Mobility Program this year stated that "All the statistics to date show that speeding is the greatest contributor to crashes in the Blue Mountains". Whilst RTA sources show that unsafe driver behaviour such as speeding is on the decrease in the Blue Mountains, it still accounts for more crashes than any other single factor.
And it's not just young drivers who are offending. The Road Safety and Mobility Program this year reported that, "increasingly road crashes and the resulting casualties are caused by ordinary people going about their daily business, but simply driving too fast to manage unpredictable situations".
Blue Mountains City Council's Road Safety and Mobility Program is conducted in collaboration with the RTA in an effort to raise awareness of local road safety and mobility issues. For further information on, call Council's Road Safety Mobility Coordinator on (02) 4780 5503.
