The second half of 2023 was the deadliest six months on Australian roads since 2010, but there is “no credible plan” to make roads safer, the industry claims, as it pleads for better data to understand what is causing the surge in fatal crashes.
In the three months to September 2023, there were 341 road deaths nationally. The following quarter’s figures decreased only slightly from that, with a further 336 deaths recorded to the end of December. The total 677 road deaths in the final six months of 2023 was the largest half-yearly road toll since the first half of 2010, when 688 people died on roads across Australia.
For the 2023 calendar year, 1,266 people died on Australian roads, an increase of 7.3% on 2022. That made last year the deadliest on Australian roads since January 2017, when 1,288 deaths were recorded.
The figures show the continuing trend of Australian roads becoming deadlier despite an ongoing national effort to reduce fatalities.
The National Road Safety Strategy, endorsed by all states and territories and the federal government, set a target of reducing road deaths by 50% between 2021 and 2030 and achieving zero road deaths in CBD areas, national highways and among all children aged seven and under. However, annual road deaths are now 15.4% higher than when the strategy began.
No state or territory is now on track to reach its targets under the strategy, but data suggests roads in some jurisdictions are more dangerous than others.
The 7.3% increase in the national road death toll in 2023 was driven by a 24.9% rise in New South Wales to 281 deaths, a 22.5% in Victoria to 240 deaths and a 64.9% increase in South Australia to 117 deaths. Meanwhile, other states recorded decreases in deaths – Queensland’s toll reduced by 6.7% to 277, and Western Australia’s reduced by 9.7% to 158.
While the increase in road deaths is made clear in the data, there is no clear understanding as to what is behind the trend, according to the Australian Automobile Association (AAA).
The AAA is critical of the lack of data relating to the quality of Australian roads, the causes of crashes and the effectiveness of crash prevention measures, which it says is collected by police and authorities in each state and territory but not released publicly or coordinated for road safety efforts. It says voluntary data-sharing arrangements are failing.
The group has been calling on the federal government to require states and territories to provide their existing road safety data as a condition of receiving commonwealth road grants – something which it says is a promise taken to the 2022 election that remains unfulfilled.
Michael Bradley, the AAA’s managing director, said “without good data, Australia has no credible plan to understand its current road trauma problems or prevent their continuation”.
“While so much data relating to roads quality and crash causation remains secret, Australia can neither identify the cause of its rising road toll, nor develop the most effective measures to reduce it,” Bradley said.
The AAA wants the requirement for states and territories to provide their data to form part of the new funding agreement which will take effect from July and serve as guidelines for how $50bn in road funding is spent over the next five years.
Road safety academics have considered a range of possible factors behind the increasing road toll, including deteriorating road quality and speed limits which are too high for smaller and rural roads, as well as impatience and poor driving habits which developed on emptier streets during lockdowns.
Prof Stuart Newstead, the director of Monash University’s accident research centre, also flagged the significant rise in SUV ownership over the past decade which he noted could lead to a sense of security which made drivers less concerned about other road users’ safety, as well as the larger vehicles being more dangerous in collisions.
The transport minister, Catherine King, has been contacted for comment.
