Blessing of the Roads ceremony | Easter weekend road safety message

Published on Thursday, 1 April 2021 at 12:00:00 PM

The Shire of Pingelly, as well as our local emergency service providers and religious leaders wish you and your family a safe and enjoyable Easter weekend.

This morning they gathered for the annual Blessing of the Roads ceremony; a campaign to raise awareness of road safety ahead of the holiday break, as well as as recognise the role of the whole community in reducing road trauma.

Scroll down below to view an Easter road safety message from Shire President Bill Mulroney, as well as a script of the prayer read by Helen Price (Pingelly Family Church) and Paul Bouwer (Pingelly Baptist Church).

Shire of President Speech Script presented by Bill Mulroney

Good Morning everyone and welcome to the Shire of Pingelly’s Blessing of the Roads.

We are proud of the Shire of Pingelly’s commitment to addressing road safety for our community.

This year, the Shire of Pingelly is supporting the WALGA RoadWise Blessing of the Roads campaign and the aim for working together to achieve the long-term vision of zero fatalities or serious injuries on our roads.

Easter is a time to rejoice and enjoy the warmth and closeness of family and friends. It is a time for celebration, for giving and sharing, laughing and spending time with those we love.

Easter is also one of the peak holiday periods where we travel both near and far, so it is important to take time to promote the issue of road safety and the impact it can have on families, friends and communities.

I appeal for your assistance in helping keep our roads safe. By getting people to think about what number they are willing to accept when it comes to road trauma we can challenge the belief that road trauma is inevitable.

By challenging this belief we can generate support and involvement in local road safety initiatives which contribute to the prevention of road trauma, and in turn, the long-term vision of zero deaths and serious injuries.

Working towards this vision of zero requires cooperation from everyone and the Shire of Pingelly is calling on you to join us and commit to a future of zero for our community.

We hear road safety messages over and over again and while most of us do the right thing when we drive, we are only human and we can make mistakes.

What we don’t want is for drivers to engage in risky behaviour. Instead we want them to:

Plan ahead if drinking: arrange a skipper, take public transport or stay overnight.
Travel at a safe speed by driving to the conditions of the road and the speed limit.
Always buckle up.
Take a break or swap drivers if feeling tired; and
Turn your mobile off before driving.

Governments can legislate, road managers can build safer roads, police can enforce, road safety groups can educate, and we can all buy safer cars, but unless we, as a community, make road safety our personal goal, we will continue to know families that are suffering the grief associated with death or serious injury from road crashes.

Over the Easter weekend, let’s all aim to ensure our police wont be called upon to attend crashes and advise loved ones of the all too often tragic results, that our ambulances and fire brigade personnel, both volunteer and full-time members, won’t be called upon to extract bodies from wrecked vehicles.

I appeal to you to be responsible when travelling on the road and spread the message to your friends, family and colleagues. Encourage everyone to be safe on our roads and to work together and accept nothing less than zero as the only number of fatalities and serious injuries.

Pingelly Family Church Prayer Script presented by Helene Price

“Lord Jesus Christ, you walked the dusty roads of your time, except for one memorable occasion when you travelled by donkey. We pray for our roads, and for everyone who will travel on them through the busy weeks ahead.

Bless the truckies who bring our food and supplies and take away our garbage. Keep them alert as they travel long distances, on lonely highways.

Bless the car drivers who travel for work or pleasure, for holidays or emergencies. Bless them with calm and courtesy, and bring them to their destinations, buckled up, sober and safe.

Bless those who travel on two wheels, Bless the motorcyclists as they stay upright, bless the cyclists as they read the traffic, and give all drivers good vision for the bikes that share the roads.

Bless the pedestrians with eyes on the road and not on their phones.

Bless the road workers who maintain our highways. Give them good teamwork and safety on the job.

Bless the Police and Emergency Services personnel who have to show up in an emergency. Bless them with an Easter break free of road trauma. When they do face the crisis of a road crash, bless them with the skill, courage and resources they need to prevent death and serious injury.

Bless all of us with a share sense of responsibility for everyone’s safety on our roads. Give us grace to set our in faith, travel in hope and arrive with love, in the name of the living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

AMEN”

Pingelly Baptist Church Prayer Script presented by Paul Bouwer

Father, we pray for safety on our roads, for those who design and build our highways and streets, and for all traffic control systems. We pray for faithful design and maintenance so that all road-users may travel with confidence.