By KATHRYN BERMINGHAM
EVERY Friday morning, motorists on Pakenham’s Eagle Drive get a stern speed reminder from residents – it’s 50 in their street.
The street is part of a Cardinia Shire Council trial program, where each house was provided with stickers as a way to combat hooning in the problematic area.
The stickers read ’50 in my street’ and are stuck onto the bins sitting along the kerb on both sides of the road.
Cardinia Shire councillor Collin Ross, who initially raised the idea two years ago as a Notice of Motion, said the program has been so successful he would like to see it implemented in other parts of the shire.
“We hear stories every day about hooning in the community, and the ’50 in my street’ road safety program is one way of getting the message through,” he said.
“At the moment it’s in Eagle Drive but I’m going to ramp it up more to see if we can expand it further.”
Cr Ross has met with his Casey Council counterparts, who have found the stickers to be an effective strategy on roads where speed is a recurring problem.
He said that while the first batch of stickers each cost the council “around a couple of dollars”, mass production would bring down the cost.
“I would like to see that areas in the Cardinia Shire might be sent out something with their rates notice, but initially we’ll just see how it goes,” Cr Ross said.
“There’s one small complication in that if we get 50km/k stickers done some problem areas might be 40 or 60 or 70km/h limits, so for the moment we’d just do 50km/h areas and hope to expand.”
