By Emily-Rose Toohey
Roads have been at the forefront of conversation over the past weeks due to flood damage and National Road Safety week, but accidents on country roads have occurred long beforehand.
The fatal crash at The Summit in April that killed four young Korean nationals is a recent example of how dangerous driving can be, and Stanthorpe police officer-in-charge Gerard Brady said that road rules can differ between countries.
“Visitors aren’t required to get a Queensland drivers license,” Officer Brady said.
“The issue is a lot of these travellers don’t need to take a test or show any sort of driving capacity.”
As a result, he said these visitors need to be across road rules.
“Police locally have a long history of working with local employment agencies and agriculture employers to educate them and their staff on road rules,” Officer Brady said.
“In April, we had police here run a program from Ipswich using their own dialects and we will continue to role the program out.
“We’ve gone to bigger farms and answered targeted, specific questions.”
In terms of of these workers being provided transport to work, Officer Brady said some farms do provide this, but they will be driving themselves outside of work hours nonetheless.
“Looking back historically, there have been a number of serious and fatal accidents involving travellers,” he said.
Granite Belt Growers Association president Nathan Baronio echoed a similar sentiment and said that working holiday makers will be driving themselves outside of work anyway.
“I don’t think there’s a simple solution,” Nathan said.
“It’s important to drive to conditions and I don’t know if people who come to Australia would like to be enforced to be transported.”
However, Nathan said it is a good conversation to have.
“All stakeholders should be involved to ensure the safety of people in our community,” he said.
