Road Safety in Marrickville

Free Child Restraint Safety Check

Parents and carers can check that their child car restraints, harnesses and booster seats are correctly fitted by an RMS Authorised Fitter free of charge.

  • Date: Tuesday 23 April 2013, 9:30am-2:30pm
  • Location: Woolworths Car Park, 463 Illawarra Road, Marrickville South
  • Bookings: Bookings are essential. To make a booking contact Council's Road Safety Officer by email rso@marrickville.nsw.gov.au or phone 9335 2207.

About road safety in Marrickville

Road crashes are a part of the daily life of the police and emergency services in the Marrickville area. On average there are two serious crashes and more than one person seriously injured every day on our roads.

The safety of our roads has been a long standing priority for the Council, but the problems are complex. The road network was not designed for a high volume of motor traffic which it now has to support. It is characterised by an irregular pattern of narrow streets and strip shopping centres along main roads. In such an environment road safety and traffic congestion are significant and difficult issues.

The area was first settled well before the development of the motor car and the road network was originally designed for horse-drawn vehicles. The major roads follow the geographical contours along ridges and the people followed, settling in a series of villages along the roads. There was little private transport and these settlements were well serviced by trams and trains from the 1880s.

Marrickville is one of the most densely settled areas in Australia. Although a residential area with some light industrial and commercial businesses, it is situated in a major transport corridor between the CBD, Sydney Airport and Port Botany. It is also on the access route from the CBD to the South Coast.

Marrickville Council was one of the first councils in NSW to employ a full time Road Safety Officer in 1993. The Road Safety Officer's role is to work with other Council officers, the Police, Roads and Maritime Services, other agencies and the community to identify and reduce the risk of road crashes in the area. Activities include a range of road safety education campaigns and programs to encourage safe road user behaviour.

Road safety has been integrated into Council's Community Strategic Plan. Promoting road safety has been identified as a priority program and one of the performance targets is a reduction in pedestrian accidents.

While Council can continue to work to make our roads safer, it is only with community support for social and behavioural change that we can hope to make a real impact on the road toll.

We hope that this web page will help to promote community awareness of road safety and encourage each one of us to act to reduce the road toll in our local community.