Benchmarking the Performance of the National Road Safety Strategy
March Quarter 2025

1,284 people were killed on Australian roads in the 12 months to 31 March – the worst year-to-March outcome since 2013.

The report shows road deaths in the year to 31 March 2025 reached their highest level since the equivalent period in 2013.

Total crash fatalities were 1.2% higher than in the same period a year earlier.

Deaths of cyclists increased by 41.9%, with fatalities among motorcyclists up 5.4%.

Per capita death rates vary widely across the country. In the 12 months to 31 March 2025:

• Australians in rural and regional areas were five times more likely than their city counterparts to die in a road crash.

• Road deaths rose in Western Australia (up 12.0%), Tasmania (16.1%), the Northern Territory (4.3%) and the ACT (175%).

• If the NSW and Victorian road death rates had been matched by the other states and the Northern Territory, 196 lives could have been saved across Australia in that 12-month period.

A stated objective of Australia’s National Road Safety Strategy 2021-30 is to halve road deaths through the decade to 2030.

Yet at the end of 2024, Australia’s 12-month road toll is 17% higher than when the Strategy began.

No state or territory is on track to meet its NRSS targets.