Australian road toll rise worst since 1966

AUSTRALIA’S road toll is now climbing at a higher rate than it did before seatbelts were made mandatory.

Road fatalities have increased over each of the past four years – a situation last seen in 1966.

In 2024, some 1300 people died on our nation’s roads, up from 1258 in 2023.

It is the worst result since 2012.

According to the Australian Automobile Association (AAA), road deaths have increased by 18.5 per cent since it released its Benchmarking the Progress of the National Road Safety Strategy (2021-30).

The AAA says the figures indicate that not a single Australian jurisdiction is on track to meet its agreed road safety targets.

Worryingly, the AAA says state and territory governments do not even collect the data necessary to measure their progress.

The AAA said it implores politicians to adopt a globally recognised road-quality assessment system as a tool to guide smarter road investment decisions.

It is a process AAA managing director Michael Bradley believes is long overdue.

“It is clear current road safety approaches are inadequate and that more action is required to save lives,” he said.

“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.”

In response to this year’s statistics, Mr Bradley called on the federal government to require state and territory governments seeking federal road funding to produce relevant road safety assessments as part of any application.

He said such transparency will not only save lives, but show Australians whether politicians are spending tax dollars to improve road safety.

The AAA says more than 450,000km of Australian roads have been assessed using the Australian Road Assessment Program (AusRAP) five-star safety rating system.

AusRAP uses engineering and other analysis to determine which roads most need safety upgrades.

These assessments are not in the public domain, however state and territory governments in 2024 agreed to end years of secrecy by publishing a range of data, including AusRAP data, on the Federal Government’s National Road Safety Data Hub.

“This critical data must be embedded into the road funding allocation process so investment can be prioritised to our most dangerous roads,” added Mr Bradley.

“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.’’

AusRAP rates roads on a five-star scale with one star being the least safe and five the safest. It estimates that each extra star halves a motorist’s risk of death or serious injury.

The program uses assessment protocols used in around 130 countries to target investment and reduce death and injury.

AusRAP road safety assessments consider risk factors such as average daily traffic; speed limit; number of lanes in each direction; lane width; shoulder width; presence or absence of roadside barriers and rumble strips; gradient and curvature; quality of line-markings; skid resistance; whether road is single or dual carriageway; and provisions for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists.

Statistics published by the AAA show Australia’s road toll increased in Queensland (+9 per cent), Western Australia (+17 per cent), the Northern Territory (+87 per cent), and in the Australian Capital Territory (+175 per cent).

Fatal collisions in New South Wales remained identical to those in 2023, while those in Victoria (-5 per cent), Tasmania (-9 per cent), and South Australia (-22 per cent) fell.

Data supplied by the Australian government’s RoadHub initiative shows most of the fatalities recorded in 2024 were by the vehicle driver (596 people or 45.8 per cent), followed by motorcyclists (278 people or 21.4 per cent), vehicle passengers (200 or 15.4 per cent), pedestrians (167 people or 12.8 per cent), cyclists (38 or 2.9 per cent), and uncategorised (remainder).

Australians aged between 40 and 64 years were over-represented in 2024 road toll data, with 400 people losing their lives on our roads. People ages between 26 and 39 followed (273), ahead of those aged 17 to 25 (240), over 75 years (163), aged 65 to 74 (144), and 8 to 16 (43). The remainder were aged less than 7 years or unknown.

Males were 2.9 times more likely to die in a road accident than females. In total, 967 males died on our roads in 2024 against 328 females.

RoadHub data shows most road deaths in 2024 (966 people or 74.3 per cent) occurred in metropolitan or regional areas, with remote and very remote areas making up the “smallest proportion of road deaths” (51 people or 3.9 per cent).

Most fatal crashes involve a single vehicle (717 people or 60.2 per cent), with 474 people dying in multiple vehicle collisions (+0.4 per cent on 2023). There have been 40 more fatal single-vehicle collisions (a 5.9 per cent increase) since the 12 months ending December 2023.

Of the total road fatalities listed for 2024, 340 lives were lost in 100km/h zones (an increase of 0.9 per cent on 2023), 282 in 60-70km/h zones (-1.1 per cent), and 201 in 80-90km/h zone (+3.1 per cent).

Road crashes are the leading cause of death and hospitalised injury in Australia. Overall, the 2024 road fatality rate equates to 4.8 people per 100,000 head of population – or 1.2 per cent higher than the same time last year.

Australia’s worst recorded year for road deaths was 1970 when 3798 fatalities were recorded – or 80 in 100,000 people.

2023-24 Australian national road toll statistics*:

*Data supplied courtesy of the Australian Automobile Association.