AAA laments "failing" Australian road policy

The Australian Automobile Association (AAA) has delivered a scathing review of the country’s "failing" road policies in light of figures this week which showed a small reduction in the annual road toll.

There were 1146 deaths on the nation's roads in the 12 months to December 2018, a 6.4 per cent drop from 2017 when 1224 were killed. Despite that reduction, the AAA argues the statistics are no cause for celebration.

"There is no room for complacency in the latest data which showed … a higher toll than in the 12 month period to March 2015, just over three years ago," the AAA said while comparing different 12 month intervals.

AAA chief executive Michael Bradley said the government was well short of a pledge to reduce the annual toll by 30 per cent to 998 in 2020. That commitment was originally agreed to by all state governments and territories in 2011.

"This devastating count of human lives highlights that the National Road Strategy, agreed to in 2011, is failing because of a lack of resources and willpower from politicians and bureaucrats alike," he said.

According to figures from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics, Victoria experienced a 17.4 per cent drop, with 259 deaths in 2017 and 214 in 2018.

Elsewhere, there was a 19 per cent fall in fatalities in South Australia where 100 people died in 2017 and 81 in 2018. New South Wales reported a 9 per cent decline, down from 389 in 2017 to 354 in 2018.

Tasmania had a 2.9 per cent drop and Western Australia a 0.6 per cent fall, while Queensland had the same number of road deaths as the previous year. The Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory recorded increases.

Bradley was not alone in his dissatisfaction. Acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack called for a greater focus on ways to reduce the toll.

"One road death or accident is one too many and the release of these recent national road death figures should serve as a reminder to all road users and stakeholders, including all governments, to be ever-vigilant and work harder to achieve improvements," Mr McCormack said.

"The ultimate safety outcome we are all striving for is a target of zero road deaths and serious injuries in Australia."

Between 1980 and 2010, the annual road fatality rate declined from 22.3 to 6.1 deaths per 100,000 people. Last year the rate dropped further to 4.58 deaths per 100,000 population.

Just how Australia lowers its toll to zero remains to be seen.

Cars are safer than ever before and speed enforcement is more prolific.

There is also a growing population and, subsequently, more people on the roads, and many motorists are covering longer distances annually.

Despite these factors, Bradley criticised the Federal Government’s inaction.

"There were 12 recommendations made in September last year by the independent Inquiry into the National Road Safety Strategy 2011-2020. To date the Government has committed to just one of these, a review of our Federal road safety bureaucracy.

"If government still can’t say how many crashes there were where speed was a factor and still can’t measure how many serious injuries occur from road crashes, how can it properly measure the success of various strategies?

"What we only know for sure is that it’s failing," Mr. Bradley said.

The chief executive of the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP), James Goodwin, says some straight-forward solutions are being overlooked.

"There are around 19 million registered vehicles on our roads with an average age of 10.1 years," he argued in a recent opinion piece.

"If we can reduce the average age of our vehicle fleet by just one year over a four-year period, 1377 lives could be saved.

"This can only be achieved by increasing the accessibility and affordability of new cars.

"It is clear more of the same is not enough, so let’s set ourselves ambitious targets, and show leadership and shared responsibility to work to reduce the road toll."