Cash for clunkers: road safety the winner

The proposed Cash for Clunkers scheme could have the unintended benefit of reducing the road toll.

It is well documented that young novice drivers are over-represented in fatal crashes.

Inexperience and risk-taking behaviour are primary causes of road deaths and serious injuries – but older, less safe vehicles are also contributing factors.

"Because they're on a budget young drivers are often in older vehicles that don't have the same safety equipment that we've come to expect from modern cars," says the chief executive of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, Andrew McKellar (pictured).

"You only have to go back 10 or 15 years to find cars without anti-lock brakes and with only one airbag -- or none at all. The description of death traps wouldn't be over stating it.

"Obviously the focus of the Cash for Clunkers scheme is to put more economical cars on the road, but an additional benefit is it will also bring modern levels of safety."

Most of the top ten cars on the eligibility list for the $2000 rebate have an ANCAP safety rating of four or more stars out of five.

The Suzuki Alto, at $12,990 drive-away one of Australia's cheapest cars, comes with six airbags and a four-star safety rating.

The $15,990 Toyota Yaris is a five-star vehicle when equipped with optional side and curtain airbags.

Not everyone will be able to afford a brand new car, and the very nature of the Cash for Clunkers conditions (the pre-1995 car to be trade-in must have been continuously registered for two years) means some first-time buyers may not have a car to trade in the first place.

But new cars bought under the scheme will all, eventually, find their way onto the used car market -- and potentially be bought by a novice driver a few years later as a used car.

McKellar says anything that helps reduce the average age of cars on our roads has to help reduce the road toll. "Anything that takes older, less safe cars out of circulation is a good thing. The safety benefit is there, even if it's not immediate in some cases," he said.

Australia has one of the oldest car fleets in the developed world. While the average age of cars in Australia fell from 10 years to 9.7 years between 2004 and 2009, this is still higher than recent measurements in other countries such as the United States (9.4 years), the European Union (8 years) and Japan (6.2 years).

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