What if we invest in projects that will actually save lives?

It’s that time again. As a federal election approaches, politicians across the spectrum are suddenly making promises about new roads and community facilities.

A roundabout or a safety upgrade here. A new swimming complex there. New boat ramps, community centres and sporting facilities.

Are politicians funding these projects to serve the overall public benefit? Or are they just cherry-picking projects that will win them votes in marginal electorates to enhance their chance of election victory?

All we know is that throughout recent decades, the Australian National Audit Office has criticised governments of both political persuasions for abusing proper process to direct grant money into knife-edge seats while ignoring safe seats.

When it comes to road spending, there is no excuse for pork barrelling. In 2024, 1300 Australians died on our roads – the worst results since 2012. Even worse, road deaths have increased in each of the past four years – the first time this has happened since 1966, before it was compulsory to wear seat belts.

If politicians want to save lives, road funding decisions must be driven by data and evidence, not politics. We need to deploy data to invest in the projects with the greatest chance of saving lives.

After decades of indifference, our politicians are starting to get the message. Last year, following a national campaign by motoring organisations, doctors, insurers, traffic engineers, trucking companies and others, Federal Transport Minister Catherine King convinced her state and territory counterparts to share and publish previously secret data about the causes of crashes and the state of our roads.

This change was the most important road safety reform in this nation in decades. When this data is reported, Australians will be able to judge the motives of politicians making road-funding promises.

However, data transparency is of itself not enough. Politicians must now use the data to save lives.

That’s why the Australian Automobile Association is calling on the parties contesting this year’s election to commit to insisting that state governments seeking federal money for road projects present evidence about how the proposed work will improve road safety.

That evidence is already at their fingertips in the form of safety ratings for individual roads.

About 450,000km of Australian roads have been rated for their safety using inspection protocols of the Australian Road Assessment Program (AusRAP). Engineers examine the roads and rate them on a five-star system where one star is least safe, and five stars is safest. Each increase in a road’s star rating halves a motorist’s risk of death or serious injury in crash.

The ratings are derived by a close examination of characteristics of sections of road including gradient, curvature, lane width, shoulder width, speed limit, traffic volume, types of vehicles using the road, presence/absence of crash barriers, rumble strips and wide centreline markings and whether a road is single or dual carriageway.

AusRAP ratings must now be embedded into the road project assessment system. States should be required to submit them as part of their applications for federal road funding and they should be published.

This transparency would show Australians whether politicians are investing in roads to make them safer, or are instead splashing the cash for political gain while more serious traffic black spots go unaddressed.

For too long, AusRAP ratings have been kept secret, perhaps because they point to the true scale of our road safety crisis.

In 2023, the federal opposition used Freedom of Information laws to obtain a series of AusRAP assessments of the Bruce Highway, which joins Brisbane and Cairns. This previously secret data showed that more than 40 per cent of the road rated only one or two stars on the AusRAP scale. Similar FOI applications in NSW and Victoria turned up similar results.

Early in January this year, it was gratifying to hear that when Ms King announced $7.2 billion in funding for the Bruce Highway, she cited safety ratings as her motivation.

This evidence-driven approach will save lives.

But this needs to become the rule, rather than the exception. All political parties contesting the upcoming federal election should commit to locking in the use of AusRAP safety ratings for all major road funding decisions.

Taking the politics out of road funding decisions is common sense.

It’s nearly four years since every Australian government signed the National Road Safety Strategy (2021-30) and committed to halving road deaths by 2030. Tragically, annual road deaths have risen 18.5 per cent since that agreement was struck.

We are wildly off-track, and a new approach is needed.

Michael Bradley
Managing Director
Australian Automobile Association

First published in The Canberra Times 17 February 2025