Seatbelts and breath tests: How road safety has changed since 1970

In 1970, 1065 people died, prompting leaders to think about what could be done to lower the road toll.

Since then, the state saw a 77 per cent decline in fatalities to the end of 2022.

Road safety advocate Donald Gibb said the introduction of seatbelts and breath tests proved effective at driving down the road toll.

"We (Victoria) introduced the seatbelt legislation in January 1971 and that was a $20 fine," Mr Gibb said.

"It did have some influence; we proved the benefits of seatbelt wearing instantly to the point where within 12 months, every state in Australia had copied Victoria and adopted the $20 fine.

"At that stage, cars coming off the assembly line had seatbelts fitted to the front seats - there wasn't a huge uptake in vehicles on the road with seatbelts."

But Mr Gibb said the real impact was made in 1974, when the state introduced the compulsory blood-alcohol testing of injured drivers going to hospitals.

"Anyone over 15 (years old), and went to hospital (after a crash) had blood alcohol samples taken," he said.

"That provided some wonderful evidence as to the real role of the drunken driver.

"In 1976, we introduced the first 'random breath test' ... that was a trial. Only 38,000 were done in the first year.

"In 1992, (Victoria) introduced the first booze buses; in one year we did 1.1 million random breath tests, and the year later we had a more than 50 per cent drop in driver and passenger fatalities."

Mr Gibb, who leads road safety awareness and education organisation Road Safety Promotion Australia, said the focus continued to be on seatbelt wearing, drink-driving and driver distraction/inattention.

He said while legislation and fines were contributing to keeping the road toll down, the number of deaths on Victoria's roads was still a "shocking" number and educating drivers - young and old - about factors that contributed to serious and fatal crashes was more effective.