A new advertising blitz aims to crack down on speeding in Western Australia, in an attempt to stamp out excuses when behind the wheel.
Speed Shatters Your Excuses is the latest campaign exploring the reasons people use to justify speeding.
For Michael Francis, one night in a friend’s car changed his life forever.
He was five minutes from home in 1992 when his friend, a 17-year-old driver, hit a tree.
“He was actually told to slow down by two people in that vehicle and unfortunately that didn’t happen, and the consequences, we hit a tree head on over 100km/h in a 60km/h zone,” Francis said.
More than 30 years later, he uses a wheelchair and still suffers chronic pain.
One of the other passengers in the car lost the use of their arm, another their leg and the third needed a full facial reconstruction.
“Its just unfortunate that 15- to 25-year-old teenage males think that we are invincible and we are far from it,” Francis said.
If there’s one thing he wants drivers to take from that night it’s that there’s no excuse.
“You are responsible for all the other road users out there that you are driving around, the time you’re on the road,” he said.
WA Road Safety Minister David Michael said he wanted to get the message across to young people in particular.
A total of 87 per cent of WA drivers admit to speeding and 51 per cent consider speeding to be acceptable driving behaviour.
But campaigns like this hope to change that mentality when behind the wheel.
