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Tough three years to meet road toll target
Efforts to make substantial cuts in Australia’s annual road toll are being undermined by two unpredicted factors—strong economic growth and changes in the vehicles people use.
The Australian Transport Council highlighted the problem when making the latest revisions of the National Road Safety Strategy. The strategy, originally launched in 2001, aimed to cut the annual death toll by 40% or to 5.6 deaths per 100,000 by 2010.
But the revised strategy just published says despite substantial progress in the last five years, there is now a risk that the 2010 target will not be reached.
ATC says the reasons for the disappointing progress have only just become apparent—and it seems that drought excluded, Australia’s economic prosperity and more people riding motor-bikes are the two factors most to blame.
“Studies have shown that increased economic activity and discretionary income are generally associated with higher levels of road trauma due to increased travel, including more travel during high-risk periods in the 24-hour cycle,” says ATC.
It says risk exposure can be expressed in vehicle-kilometres travelled and “VKT” has risen at a much higher rate than was predicted when the safety strategy was first formulated in 2001.
At the same time motorbike sales are soaring. Sales were edging towards 3000 a month in 2003 but they had climbed to 7278 a month in the first half of 2006. The result was more deaths among motorbike riders. Between1999 and 2005 motorcycle deaths rose 33%.
“From 2004 to 2005 the number of motorcyclist deaths increased by 38 which accounted for most of the increase in total road deaths,” ATC said.
The good news is that from a peak of 3798 road deaths in 1970, Australia’s annual toll is down to around 1600—and that is despite the fact that road travel has increased by close to 150% over the same period.
To achieve the 2010 target will require a further 20% drop in road deaths over the next three years—a task that ATC admits will not be easy. To make what it calls “another major step-down in road trauma” will require renewed focus on the so called “safe system” principles: making the road transport system more forgiving to human error, while minimising the contribution of unsafe user behaviour to road crashes.
Apart from an even greater focus on speeding and improving the safety of roads, ATC wants road safety recognised as a major public health issue and offering major social benefits.
“Road safety initiatives are generally valued solely on the basis of the level of trauma reduced,” ATC says.
“However, it is important to improve our understanding reduction can result in reduced fuel consumption, emissions and noise. Low-speed shared road environments are conducive to walking and cycling—improving community cohesion, supporting community health objectives and reducing trauma, particularly for pedestrians.”
