Road safety crisis prompts fresh calls for funding changes
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After the deadliest 12 months on Australian roads since 2012 the Australian Automobile Association is leading calls for federal road funding to be tied to more stringent safety data.
The Australian Automobile Association is leading calls for federal government road funding to be more carefully allocated – and currently undisclosed safety data made public – after the highest road toll in Australia since 2012.
The official road toll of 1300 deaths in 2024 was up by 3.3 per cent – 42 more fatalities – compared to the previous 12 months.
The figures mean Australia is not on target to reach the National Road Safety Strategy's goal of reducing deaths on Australian roads by half – compared to 2018-20 – by the year 2030.
Statistically, the country will fall short of the goal by a significant 42.2 per cent.
In its report Benchmarking the Progress of the National Road Safety Strategy (2021-30), the Australian Automobile Association (AAA) has called for the introduction of a compulsory safety assessment of roads applying for federal funding.
MORE: Australian road toll hits 12-year high, despite safer cars coming to market
It says this would help determine where the funding should go, with a statement from the AAA saying it will save lives "while also showing Australians whether politicians are spending their taxes to save lives rather than winning votes in marginal electorates".
"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," the AAA Managing Director Michael Bradley said in the report.
Bradley is calling for the Australian Road Assessment Program (AusRAP) to be used for more effective use of funding in order to improve road safety – and help reduce the road toll.
AusRAP has analysed more than 450,000km of Australian roads and uses engineering analysis to determine a level of safety, ranked by a star rating system from one to five, with five the highest (safest) score.
MORE: Lower speed limit trial aims to reduce road toll in WA
It assesses traffic volume, lane width and shoulder width, land and line markings to complete its analysis.
In November 2024, the federal, state and territory governments across Australia agreed to share previously ‘secret’ data – including AusRAP – on road crashes for the first time.
Yet Mr Bradley says there's a more urgent need to share all available data and implement effective road safety measures based on the findings of the information.
"This critical data must be embedded into the road funding allocation process so investment can be prioritised to our most dangerous roads," said Mr Bradley.
"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."
One of the roads assessed is the Bruce Highway – a major road stretching almost 1700km from Brisbane to Cairns in Queensland – which was granted $7.2 million in funding for upgrades by the federal government on 6 January 2025.
According to the federal government, the Bruce Highway has an average Fatal and Serious Injury (FSI) crash rate "three to five times higher" than any major highway in New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria – the two states with the highest and second-highest road tolls.
However, the Bruce Highway will only be brought up to a three-star rated road – short of the ideal five-stars – after improvements the funding allows are made.
Further assessment of funding across the country is needed, according to Bradley, as Australia falls well short of its road safety targets in every state and territory.
MORE: $81 million Road Safety Program announced for New South Wales
Insurance company AAMI published its 2024 Crash Index – analysing more than 4.3 million claims over a decade – and found Plenty Road in Melbourne, Victoria, the most dangerous road in Australia.
In Western Australia (WA), a three-year Safer Speeds Trial began in December 2024 in an effort to reduce fatalities, with WA posting a 17 per cent increase in deaths (185) for the calendar year, its highest since 2016 (194).
Following increasing road tolls in 2021, 2022 and 2023, federal and state governments launched a Road Safety Forum aiming to tackle the road toll.
Further efforts have included a national road safety advertising campaign, Road Safety Starts with You, kicked off by the federal government in December 2024 with slogans including 'Don't Let a Car Change Who You Are'.
MORE: Shock and horror: Australia's road toll surges by 12 per cent
The same month, the federal government also increased Black Spot funding to $150 million per year – up from $110 million – with $200 million available each year through the Safer Local Roads and Infrastructure Program (SLRIP).
The SLRIP is a road funding infrastructure program which began in July 2024, described as an "application-based merit-assessed funding program" to improve road safety.
The 2024 road toll is the fourth consecutive year of increases in deaths, the first time this has occurred since the Australian Road Deaths Database was established in 1989.
The sombre result is also the first four-year block of rising deaths since 1966 – four years before Victoria led the world with mandatory seat-belt wearing laws, with the rest of Australia following by the end of 1971.
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