RACQ heads to regional Qld for road safety week
RACQ held it’s impactful ‘Blooms for Blokes’ activation in Toowoomba this week, while the Club’s Educators spent time teaching students in Outback schools to raise awareness about the impacts of road trauma in regional communities this Queensland Road Safety Week.
On Tuesday 19 August, 1,075 flowers were handed out to locals at Toowoomba Grand Central Shopping Centre, with the aim to gift them to a special bloke in their life, reminding them to drive safe.
It was part of an activation alongside Queensland Police, with each flower representing a male life lost on the State’s roads over the past five years.
With men three times more likely to die on Queensland roads than women and regional electorates making up the top 10 worst-affected by road trauma, RACQ’s Head of Public Policy Michael Kane said there had never been a more critical time to talk about road safety.
“Too often, the first-time men receive flowers is at their funeral – a reality people in regional Queensland know all too well. That’s why RACQ has brought Blooms for Blokes to Toowoomba,” Dr Kane said.
“By encouraging Queenslanders to gift the men in their lives a flower while they are still alive, we hope to prompt them to think about how much they’d be missed if they were gone – a thought that will hopefully make them drive and ride safer.”
According to RACQ’s new Fatal and Serious Crash Dashboard the social cost of road trauma, across the electorates of Toowoomba North and Toowoomba South between 2019 and 2023, totalled more than $520 million.
2025 is tracking to be another horrific year on Queensland roads, with 187 people already losing their lives across the State – more than 75% of whom were men.
“On average, 79 people die each year in crashes involving a speeding driver, 57 in crashes involving a drink driver, and 59 in crashes involving a drug-affected driver. Right now, someone dies every 30 hours on Queensland roads. We have to turn this cultural crisis around,” Dr Kane said.
As part of Queensland Road Safety Week, RACQ educators are visiting four high schools across Western Queensland, engaging with 332 students who are about to or have just started driving.
Students from Years 7 to 12 at Clermont, Capella, Blackwater, and Moura State High Schools learned about the Fatal Five in a way that directly relates to their everyday lives.
“In regional Queensland, people don’t have as much access to public transport, rideshare or taxis, and they often live far from family, friends and town centres,” Dr Kane said.
“That means they need to plan for how they’ll get home if they’ve had a few drinks. Higher speed limits and challenging road conditions also contribute to the high number of fatal crashes in our regions, so it’s critical that new drivers understand the risks and how to manage them.
“We know people are more likely to die on regional roads than anywhere else in Queensland – and that’s why RACQ is here, doing everything we can to help prevent another tragedy.”
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