Is it time to re-think our road safety strategy?

Australia’s road safety strategy has come into the spotlight once again after fresh figures revealed the national toll is growing.

Despite the advent of smarter, safer cars and a higher concentration on speed enforcement, road fatalities grew 2.9 per cent in the 12 months to March 2018, according to Australia’s peak motoring group.

The Australian Automobile Association (AAA) said 1270 people lost their lives in the latest annual results. The figure puts all Australian states and territories behind notional targets to reduce road fatalities by 30 per cent through the decade to 2020.

Along with more fatalities, the AAA Benchmarking Report revealed a 19 per cent increase in severe road injuries compared with the same period in 2013. Cyclist deaths also increased 104 per cent on the corresponding 12 months.

The March quarter did bring a slight decrease in the toll on the previous December result, but within that, Tasmania’s road death toll climbed 39 per cent in the 12 months to March, and South Australian road deaths grew by 23 per cent. A total 412 people lost their lives on NSW roads, an increase of 12.3 per cent.

“This is yet another report that confirms Australia’s road safety strategy is failing badly and that our national policies and programs need to be reviewed,” said AAA chief executive Michael Bradley.

“No state is performing well, however this report also reveals we now have two states in NSW and Tasmania, where road fatality rates are higher than when the Strategy was implemented in 2011.

“Clearly, a set-and-forget policy approach can no longer be supported”.

Australian motorists poured more than $1.1 billion in various government coffers in speeding fines alone during the 2017 financial year, Department of Justice and Regulation figures showed.

However, the focus on speeding clearly isn’t  the silver bullet to lowering the national road toll.

Releasing the report on the eve of the Federal Budget, the AAA put forward a number of recommendations in its National Road Safety Platform, including the re-establishment of the National Office of Road Safety.

In a separate submission to Federal Parliamentarians last year, the Australasian College for Road Safety (ACRS) made four key recommendations for reducing road trauma:

1) The Australasian College of Road Safety calls on all Federal Parliamentarians to unanimously reject the current increasing rate of road death and injury, and commit to the ultimate goal of eliminating fatalities and serious injuries on the road

2) The Australasian College of Road Safety calls on the Federal Government to task the Productivity Commission with undertaking a full inquiry into the impact of road trauma on Australia’s productivity, and the national investment and policy decisions required to achieve the nation’s policy goals of a safe road transport system.

3) The Australasian College of Road Safety calls on the Federal Government to:

Make the publication of targeted safety star ratings on the National Road Network a condition for any Commonwealth investment in the network, from 2017/18 onward;

Undertake a full policy review in 2017/18 of how to leverage greater safety results from its current investment in road transport; and

Ensure all new vehicles (cars, vans, motorcycles, buses and trucks) are equipped with world best practice safety technology and meet world best practice crash-worthiness.

4)  The Australasian College of Road Safety calls on the Federal Government to establish a six-monthly forum for national stakeholders seeking to support significant improvements in road safety. The purpose of the forum would be to review progress in road safety at a national level, and discuss key initiatives for significantly improving results.

Has the AAA or the ACRS come up with a more effective road safety strategy? Let us know in the comments section below.