Australia’s top body for driving clubs says Australian governments are failing in their efforts to reduce road injuries and are unable or unwilling to get to the heart of the matter.
The Australian Automobile Association (AAA) this week delivered a scathing review of the government’s road safety strategies, going so far as to question their commitment to reducing road injuries.
AAA members include the NRMA, RACV, and RACQ, among other state motor clubs.
Current federal government National Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030 (NRSS), signed by state and territory transport ministers as well as the Federal Government, has the goal of halving road deaths and reducing serious injuries by 30% by the end of the decade.
The NRSS also seeks to achieve zero deaths for children under 7 years of age, zero deaths in the downtown area and zero deaths on all highways by the same 2030 deadline.
The decade-long strategy got off to a bad start. Road tolls in 2022 are higher than in 2021, and road tolls in 2023 have been higher so far this year. There were 1204 road deaths in Australia in the 12 months to 31 March 2023 – a 5.9% increase.
This is also not due to population growth, as the annual mortality rate per 100,000 population increased by 4.2%.
Every state and territory – with the exception of New South Wales – fell short of the agreed road safety goals.
Worse, the AAA model shows that national road tolls are in fact 19% higher than they would be if the strategy was on track to meet the target rate reduction goal – a similar number. with 193 excess deaths.
It is important for AAA to state that governments have yet to develop a national data system that can quantify serious national injuries, even though this is a matter of long-standing priority for agencies. road transport agency.
Instead, the full dataset is held by state governments and is not consolidated into national figures – unlike top-level toll figures.
AAA Chief Executive Officer, Michael Bradley, said: “There are no national data on crash causes, serious injuries, road quality or details of people and vehicles involved.
“This means that we have not yet been able to measure the serious national losses. We also don’t know the fatality rates in downtown areas, or on the highways and highways that account for 80% of journeys across the transport network.
“These are both NRSS targets. Only two of the Strategy’s five key performance indicators – national totals and infant deaths – are accurately measurable.”
The Ministry of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Media and the Arts (a division) releases monthly newsletters showing road deaths by jurisdiction, participants traffic, age group, gender, crash type, posted speed limit, and time of day.
You can read an example report from March 2023 This.
Mr. Bradley is calling for reforms in which the Federal Government would require states to provide data related to NRSS targets as a prerequisite to receiving Federal funding for roads.
“The AAA strongly supports these injury reduction goals, but governments must report the data needed to measure progress and prevent future injuries,” he said.
“Road deaths have increased over the past five years and the lack of data reporting on road injuries makes it difficult to understand the reasons for this trend and identify the measures needed to stop them. towel.
“The unwillingness of governments to collect or report the data needed to measure targets undermines the credibility of the Strategy and prevents an evidence-based response to worsening road safety performance. Australian currency.”
In a separate email, Mr. Bradley offered some even more convincing quotes:
“This report raises serious questions about the Government’s commitment to reducing road traffic injuries,” he said.
“You can’t improve what you don’t measure, and when it comes to road injuries in Australia, the Federal Government measures very little.
“Families of the victims deserve to know that governments are learning from each accident and taking steps to prevent others from suffering the same fate.
“Until governments report on the targets they have set, Australia’s road spending will continue to be a political game.
“Drivers deserve to make data-driven funding decisions because saving a life is more important than saving a side seat.”
Road deaths in Australia
- 2018: 1135
- 2019: 1186
- 2020: 1097 (decrease in mortality is less than average driving miles have decreased during the COVID lockdown)
- 2021: 1129
- 2022: 1192
- 2023: YTD: 312 (up 4% over the same period)
- Targets for 2030 according to NRSS: 571
Source: BITRE.gov.au
THAN: Why are road tolls in Australia up, despite speed cameras and safer cars?
