Safety experts call for taxes on large SUVs and utes to curb road toll

Large SUVs and utes are more dangerous than other vehicle types to vulnerable road users like cyclists and so they should be slugged with higher import duties, increased registration fees and levies on driving them in cities to discourage their purchase.

That’s the contention of Australian road safety experts who recently fronted a Victorian government inquiry into road safety for vulnerable road users following an eight per cent increase in pedestrian deaths in the state this year.

According to the latest road trauma statistics from the federal government’s Department of Instructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts, Victoria’s road toll is up by 23.2 per cent so far in 2023 compared to the same period in 2022.

Even more alarmingly, NSW road deaths are up by 28 per cent and South Australia by 65 per cent.

Last year SUVs accounted for a record 53 per cent of all new vehicles sold in Australia, while light commercial vehicles accounted for almost 24 per cent, combining for a total of almost 77 per cent – up from 45 per cent in 2012.

According to Prof Stuart Newstead of Monash University’s Accident Research centre, large SUVs increase the risk of serious injury to other road users by about 30 per cent compared to mid-size SUVs, and that larger vehicles including dual-cab 4x4 utes – Australia’s single most popular new-vehicle type – were “problematic”.

“Commercial vehicles provide some of the highest risks of killing road users when they collide with them, but that disbenefit is not offset by any safety benefit to their own occupants,” he said.

“The principal problem we have in terms of vehicle safety at the moment is our penchant for buying 4x4 utes in general.

“We need to stop incentivising their purchase – a lot of them are being bought as a business tool and not being used as a business tool.

“I think there’s no doubt that COVID has had an impact on road safety,” added Newstead, pointing out that many commuters had ditched public transport in the post-pandemic world, while e-scooters, e-bikes and bicycles had increased in popularity.

The Australasian College of Road Safety’s Ingrid Johnston said that when the COVID-19 lockdowns started in 2020, “…traffic dropped but trauma rates didn’t drop as much as you’d expect. And following that we’ve seen the rates skyrocket.

“To disincentivise people from purchasing these [large] cars in the first place, you could increase import tax. It’s being done elsewhere,” she added.

France’s mega-city, Paris, recently introduced new laws that sting SUV drivers with higher fees for parking to reduce pollution and deal with ‘auto-besity’.

“You could try to disincentivise them being used in the middle of cities, so you could have a levy for bringing a vehicle of a certain size. You could increase registration fees,” posited Johnston.

Ben Beck, from the Sustainable Mobility and Safety Research Group, told the inquiry: “One in every four serious crashes on Australian roads involves a bike rider, and each year around 15,000 Australians are hospitalised after a bike crash.”

Compared to the pre-COVID era, the average number of bike riders seriously injured in Victoria between July 2020 and June 2022 had risen by 57 per cent, said Beck.

Transport and cities expert at the Grattan Institute, Marion Terrill, said government policy works to “…incentivise the purchase of larger vehicles” and agreed with the ACRS that large SUVs could be slugged with a levy to reduce their popularity with buyers.

“The signals the governments are giving people is that there is nothing wrong with larger cars,” she stated. “If you have to pay more for a larger car, that will affect your [buying] decision.”