Australia needs safer roads
Australia lacks detailed, reliable and consistent road safety data in many key areas. Without good road safety data, we can’t target investment where the need is greatest and we can’t use evidence to set effective priorities and hold governments to account.
About 110 people die on Australian roads each month. While the social cost of road trauma is immeasurable, AAA research has shown it costs the Australian economy $30 billion a year, mainly from foregone tax revenues, vehicle damage, health costs and disability care. Sadly, the road toll is increasing despite government targets to halve it by 2030.
The AAA seeks a commitment that the next Australian Government will:
- Compel all states and territories to provide comprehensive and consistent data on road trauma and publish the data as per the AAA’s Data Saves Lives campaign.
- Establish the National Office of Road Safety with dedicated legislation setting out its prescribed functions, deliverables and annual obligations for reporting to the Australian Parliament.
- Establish prevention-focused no-blame investigations at the Commonwealth level to include serious injury and fatal road crashes, patterns and/or risks and make recommendations for systemic improvements.
Data saves lives
The Federal Government gives states and territories $10 billion in road funding each year, yet the number of people dying on our roads is continually rising.
To address this crisis, Commonwealth must coordinate an overhaul of Australia’s road safety data collection, analysis and reporting capabilities.
This requires the states and territories to publish crucial data that they hold about crash circumstances, road quality, and the effectiveness of law enforcement regimes as a condition of receiving Commonwealth road funding.
All jurisdictions must:
- Agree on consistent metrics and reporting formats for data, including measuring and reporting serious injury data as a matter of urgency
- Share all data sets – including a full picture on crash causes
- Integrate data sets – overlaying road crash information with geospatial, road network and health data
- Share these data sets in an open-source platform and produce up-to-date reports on performance against National Road Safety Strategy targets.
Improved data will produce better informed road safety interventions. It will support targeted infrastructure investment and the evaluation of interventions.
It will also make governments more accountable for their transport infrastructure investments.
For decades, state, territory and federal governments on both sides of politics have been using road funding to win votes at elections.
They know that by spending more of your taxes on roads in marginal seats, they have a greater chance of winning elections.
Publishing road safety data will make road funding much more transparent and make it easier to hold politicians to account.
Data transparency lets Australia reset existing arrangements in order to improve accountability, transparency, and efficiency.
That will deliver better outcomes – enhancing road safety and democracy.
Road safety statistics and policies
As the nation’s strongest advocate for road safety, the AAA reports monthly on the latest road deaths and serious injuries statistics, and regularly tracks government progress toward safety targets.
It also campaigns for adequate road funding and effective road safety policies.
