2024 saw worst road toll in over a decade

Despite more speed cameras on our roads, lower speed limits, safer cars and increased awareness around driving under the influence of drugs including alcohol, the national road toll in Australia has soared to levels not seen in over a decade.

The latest figures from the federal government’s Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE) reveals that 1300 people died on Australian roads in 2024, matching the numbers recorded in 2012.

Despite the national road toll dropping steadily in the years after 2012, it has been rising since 2021.

Alarmingly, 2024 was the fourth consecutive annual increase in road deaths, a scenario that has not occurred since 1966.

“It is clear current road safety approaches are inadequate and that more action is required to save lives,” said Michael Bradley, the managing director of the Australian Automobile Association (AAA), which is the peak body for the nation’s motoring clubs including RACQ, NRMA, RAA and RACV.

The Federal Government formalised a funding agreement with all states and territories to facilitate the exchange of critical traffic collision data in November 2024, which will be utilised to inform transport policies and allocate funding under the Road Safety Program.

Dubbed the ‘Road Safety Data Hub’, it serves as a central repository for road trauma data that is freely available to all – not just media or government agencies.

“We must use data and evidence about crashes, the state of our roads and the effectiveness of police traffic enforcement to establish what is going wrong on our roads and create more effective interventions,” said Bradley.

The hope is that the Road Safety Data Hub will enhance transparency and data-driven decision-making in road safety initiatives nationwide. The project is a key initiative under the National Partnership Agreement on Land Transport Infrastructure Projects and has been allocated $21.2 million in funding.

“This critical data must be embedded into the road funding allocation process so investment can be prioritised to our most dangerous roads,” urged Bradley.

“Australia’s rising road toll underscores the importance of using road condition data to direct road funding, and to prevent the politicisation of scarce public funds,” he added.

Digging into the figures reveals that most states and territories saw an increase in road fatalities, with Queensland, Western Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory all seeing rises, while New South Wales saw the exact same number of roads death as the year prior, at 340. The New South Wales tally was also the highest of any state or territory.

Victoria saw a fall of road deaths, down five per cent from 296 to 281, while South Australia also saw a drop from 117 to 91 fatalities, a drop of 22 per cent. The toll in Tasmania fell too, the drop from 35 to 32 deaths marking a decrease of nine per cent.

Looking at the demographics, the 40 to 64-year-old age bracket saw the highest number of road deaths, at 400, followed by 26 to 39-year-old road users (273) and 17 to 25-year-olds (240).

Road toll by state

Deaths by age group

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