Safer Transport

1,187 people died on Australian roads in 2022.

It is little surprise that independent research has shown Australian motorists are more concerned about road safety than any other factor influencing driving – including transport costs, congestion and vehicle emissions.

The social cost of road deaths is immeasurable, however the economic impact of Australia’s road safety crisis is not. AAA research has found road crashes cost the Australian economy almost $30 billion annually, mainly in the form of foregone tax revenues, vehicle damage, and disability care.

With about 100 Australians killed in car crashes every month, and the same number seriously injured daily, there is an urgent need to reduce vehicle crashes and the AAA and its member clubs have a number of strategies and proposals to make our roads safer.

Better data

Australia lacks detailed, reliable and consistent road safety data in many key areas. Without good road safety data, we can’t target investment where there is most need and we can’t use evidence to set effective priorities.

The AAA believes the Office of Road Safety should be given responsibility for implementing an overhaul of Australia’s road safety data collection, analysis and reporting capabilities. The Office must work with state and territory governments to:

• 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.