Road safety breakthrough will save lives
The AAA congratulates the Albanese Government for obtaining agreement from all state and territory governments to end the secrecy that has for too long surrounded critical road safety data.
In the first nine months of 2024, Australia recorded 956 road deaths – you need to go back to 2010 to find a deadlier first nine months of a year.
The data needed to make sense of Australia’s climbing road toll has always been collected by state and territory governments but has never been nationally reported or published.
However, Transport Minister Catherine King today announced the Commonwealth Government’s new five-year Federation Funding Agreement with states and territories now requires jurisdictions to report crucial data.
This includes data on the location and type of crashes; the state of our roads; causes of crashes related to risky behaviour; drug and alcohol measurements; seat belt and helmet use; speed; and driver fatigue, inexperience, and distraction.
AAA Managing Director Michael Bradley said: “The AAA congratulates Minister King on delivering Australia’s most significant road safety reform in many years.
“Publishing this data will save lives, because it will help explain the crashes occurring today, and tell us how to prevent similar crashes in the future. Australians will finally be able to see which road safety approaches are working, and those that are not.
“Importantly, publishing this safety data will also clip the wings of politicians who want to use road funding at election time to win votes in marginal electorates, rather than to save lives.
“Australian motorists strongly support data transparency because they want to be assured that their taxes are being spent on projects that help them and their communities, rather than the politicians that announce them.
“This is a commonsense reform that will make a real difference.”
The breakthrough reform follows years of advocacy by the AAA.
The AAA’s Data Saves Lives campaign was supported by the nation’s motoring clubs, and 18 national organisations representing motorists, motorcyclists, truckers, pedestrians, doctors, insurers, road engineers and safety advocates.
Thousands of Australians also backed the campaign by encouraging their elected representatives to support data transparency.