John Merritt said more than $300 million was being rolled out on safety measures such as wire rope barriers and tactile edging, but some country roads would miss out.

“There are certainly roads where the volume of traffic is such that they would be a long way down the list... so I think we need to work with the community and look at what else we can do,” he said.

“Part of the Towards Zero Strategy is trying to work better with communities about where that (reducing speed limits) might be a practical option for them.”

Mr Merritt said the majority of local drivers already drove to the conditions.

“They live there, they know the road, they’ve adjusted their driving to the weather and the time of day. It’s a small number of others that don’t, and how do we get to those people?” he said.

“Two-thirds of drivers who die, die on a country road, half of them run off and a quarter of them have a head-on.

“In order to get the road toll down… it’s fundamental that we get country drivers out of the road toll, that’s the big challenge for us.”