John McVeigh (Groom, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Friday, I attended the Fatality Free Friday event in my city of Toowoomba, chaired by the deputy mayor, Carol Taylor, and addressed by our mayor, Paul Antonio. This was a most significant event to remind our community of the importance of taking personal responsibility for being safe on our roads. Along with many others, I signed the pledge, as I did here in the Australian parliament with many colleagues not so long ago, to always be fit to drive, stay focused on the road, scan the road ahead, keep a safe distance and drive to suit the conditions. These were the very messages that I stressed to my eldest daughter as she drove herself on her first long road trip from Rockhampton, in Central Queensland, to Brisbane, in the south-east, just one day later. We must heed the heartfelt messages last Friday from Darling Downs District Inspector Stephen Angus, of the Queensland Police Service, and from Assistant Commissioner David Hermann, of the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services, that the key to road safety is in all of our hands—in our families' hands and in our communities' hands, but ultimately in each individual set of hands, for us as road users, one and all.