New information from Australia’s peak motoring body has shown the poor quality of regional roads played a major role in contributing to the highest road toll in five years.
Australia’s peak motoring body has reported almost two-thirds of the nation’s road toll last year was due to fatal crashes on regional roads, prompting it to call on the Federal Government to start collecting more data to influence safety policies.
According to the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE), 1193 people died on Australian roads in 2022 – six more deaths than the data it reported last month – which represented a five per cent increase on the number of motorists killed in 2021.
The 2022 road toll was also the highest number of fatalities since 2017, which the Australian Automobile Association (AAA) attributes largely to deaths in regional areas.
Of the 1193 reported deaths on Australian roads in 2022, 776 people were killed in regional areas – accounting for 65 per cent of the overall figure – while 417 lost their lives in metropolitan areas.
For every 100,000 people living in a regional area, 10.6 motorists died – more than double the national average of 4.56 and almost five-times higher than the metropolitan average of 2.24.
In March 2022, a BITRE study found the poor quality of roads in regional areas – such as poor design, repair flaws, inadequate safety treatments, and insufficient infrastructure for vulnerable road users – is directly linked to the rising road toll in rural and remote locations.
While AAA Managing Director Michael Bradley says the data shows where the fatal crashes are occuring, he called on the government to collect more information in order to influence better policies which are designed to reduce the road toll.
“These numbers present a picture that should be of great concern for people and families living across regional Australia,” Mr Bradley said in a media statement.
“We need to understand the factors causing this metro-regional disparity and greater Commonwealth road safety leadership through improved data collection is the key to making this possible.
“We know deaths are continuing to rise, but we have no national data regarding serious injuries, road quality, crash causes, or details regarding the people and cars involved.
“It is not enough to know how many people were killed in road crashes – we also need to know how they were killed, and how to prevent these deaths in the future.”
The Federal Government’s National Road Safety Strategy (NRSS) aims to reduce road deaths by 50 per cent and serious injuries by 30 per cent by 2030 compared to 2018-2020 levels, but the AAA has claimed the target is unlikely to be met.
As reported last month, deaths on the road fell by 0.6 per cent from September to December 2022 compared to the three months prior, though the road toll needs to be reduced by more than 19 per cent every three months to reach the government’s 2030 target.
2022 Australian road toll by state
| Jurisdiction | Road deaths | Road deaths per 100,000 population |
| Queensland | 299 | 5.62 |
| New South Wales | 292 | 3.58 |
| Victoria | 241 | 3.64 |
| Western Australia | 174 | 6.25 |
| South Australia | 71 | 3.9 |
| Tasmania | 51 | 8.92 |
| Northern Territory | 47 | 18.75 |
| Australian Capital Territory | 18 | 3.94 |
| Australia | 1193 | 4.59 |
The post Regional roads accounted for two-thirds of Australia’s 2022 road toll appeared first on Drive.
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