Cr Ian Nicholson said such plans were necessary in all areas to improve safety on the roads.

``It was interesting to note in the Victorian press that road accidents kill more young adult men in the state, than any other form of death,'' he said.

``Road safety is therefore a very important part of the role of any council. We upgrade our roads all in the name of safety.

``I for one would like to thank Peter Bigmore who has worked with us on this for some time.''

Cr Kevin Erwin said the review process for the strategy had been going on for quite a while and he was pleased with the outcome.

``The workload has been very heavy,'' he said.

``This strategy takes in all areas of road safety. It is aimed at Keys Please, gophers, right down to baby capsules.

``Now it has been fully reviewed, a number of recommendations are contained within the strategy that will go to the roads committee to be worked through.

``I am sure it will be very easy to operate this plan in the future.''

Mayor Cr Bryan Small said he and the chief executive officer Glen Davis had travelled to Horsham recently to meet with members of the roads cluster and with the deputy CEO of VicRoads, Sue Jaquinot and other VicRoads officers.

``One of the things Ms Jaquinot said was basically they have a target to reduce road fatalities by 30% by the year 2017,'' Cr Small said.

``This is a fairly tough target to achieve. Previously I think they were supposed to be going to reduce fatalities by 20% by 2010. I suspect 2010 suddenly got a little close, so they took it out a bit further, but they have increased the target to 30%.

``That is a massive target and the point that we made to them was that while the State Government allows the rail freight system to decline to the point where it is virtually going out of existence, they will not have a hope of achieving that target unless they can get semi trailers and B-doubles off the road.''

Cr Small said the issue was discussed in some detail at the rail freight summit held in Melbourne on August 14.

Cr Small attended the summit along with more than 200 concerned councillors, farmers and exporters from across the state.

The overwhelming thrust of the meeting was that there is no area, except short-haul freight, in which road is superior to rail freight.