Car brands 'saving a few dollars' leave Aussie drivers at risk: 'Not acceptable'

Yahoo

14-03-2025

Vehicle safety standards are slipping in Australia, falling far behind our European counterparts when it comes innovative technology advancements that have not only been proven to save lives, but have already been in place for many years.
While we are making some progress, in order to combat the soaring number of fatalities taking place on our roads, drastic measures are urgently needed, including among both vehicle manufacturers and government divisions.
Dr Ingrid Johnston, CEO of the Australasian College of Road Safety (ACRS), said Australia "used to be a leader" in this space, but in recent years, has trailed behind many other developed countries. Speaking to Yahoo, she said we can do much better and called for authorities to "catch up".
"Vehicle safety standards (known as the Australian Design Rules) are falling well behind the highest in the world, which is Europe," she said. "And what that means is that we have vehicles which are legally allowed for sale in this country that get a zero safety star rating.
"In fact, we've had a model that arrived in our country having had safety features removed, because they're not required here. So you might think that you've got an identical vehicles to what's being sold in Europe, but the Australian version is going to have had safety features removed. It's just not acceptable."
When it comes to advanced technology in the Northern Hemisphere, there's a whole range of initiatives that can easily be implemented on home soil, Johnston said.
"There's a lot that Europe is doing that we are nowhere near talking about," she said. "Europe, for many, many years, has had what they termed eCall — which means if your vehicle is in a crash, it will automatically call the emergency services with a geo-locator.
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"This saves incredibly valuable time in letting the emergency services know that there's a crash they need to attend and letting them know exactly where it is. We could implement that, but we haven't."
Similar technology already exists in many smart phone models, meaning it's readily available, but just inadequately used.
Not only that, there's also equipment that can detect drowsiness in drivers by monitoring eye movement. "When you're driving your car it will be monitoring if your eyes are maintaining contact with the road the way they should be and whether you're holding the steering wheel properly," Johnston said.
"It alerts you if it thinks that your attention is distracted, or it thinks that you might be tired. Again, we don't mandate those things. We just rely on them filtering through from other countries.
"But the manufacturers don't always do that. They say it's not mandatory. In Australia, they'd rather save a few dollars and leave it out."
Johnston said as other nations push forward with stricter regulations and advanced technology, Australia continues to fall behind. The consequences of this lag are becoming increasingly evident, with road fatalities rising at an alarming rate.
The reality is that without urgent action, she said, more lives will be lost unnecessarily. Strengthening vehicle safety standards, enforcing smarter road policies, and ensuring that cutting-edge technology is implemented should not be optional — it should be a national priority.
"There's a lot that we could be doing, absolutely, a lot. But there just hasn't been the leadership shown from state and federal governments around the country to make it happen, and there needs to be."
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