Push for more point to point speeding cameras as millions face new driver crackdown
Road safety experts are urgently calling for action to curb the rising death toll on roads in Australia, pushing for stronger measures including increased police patrols, mandatory roadside drug testing after crashes, and expanded use of point-to-point speed cameras in high-risk areas.
The Royal Automobile Club of Queensland (RAQ) said the vast majority of the 303 deaths that occurred on the state's roads last year were preventable. The last time Queensland's road toll exceeded 300 was in 2009, with 2025 already "tracking for an even worse total", the group warned.
The authority argued several strategies must be implemented in response, which are of particular importance given that so far this year, almost one fatality has occurred every day on the state's roads.
RACQ wants to see the installation of more point-to-point speed cameras in high-risk crash zones, which deter speeding by recoding the average speed of motorists over a stretch of road. It also wants to see the state government immediately boost police presence on the roads, in addition to mandatory roadside drug testing after all crashes.
Point-to-point speed cameras, also known as average speed cameras, measure a vehicle's speed over a set distance rather than at a single location. They work by recording the time a vehicle passes two fixed points along a road and calculating its average speed between them.
If the vehicle's average speed exceeds the legal limit for that stretch of road, the driver receives a fine. These cameras are particularly effective in reducing speeding over long distances, discouraging drivers from simply slowing down for traditional fixed cameras and then speeding up again. They are commonly used in high-risk crash zones, highways and tunnels to improve road safety.
In NSW, their use is set to be expanded in the near future.
In addition to the cameras, RACQ is also pushing for expanded hooning laws to cover a broader range of reckless speeding, drink-driving and drug-driving offences, leading to offenders' vehicles being impounded or immobilised for 30 to 90 days.
General Manager of Advocacy Joshua Cooney said the reforms are desperately needed to combat Queenslanders' "worsening" attitudes toward road safety, arguing that extreme driving and deliberate rule breaking was on the rise.
"Speeding, drink driving and drug driving are the main killers on our roads, and we need strong and urgent law reform to quickly curb these alarming trends and dramatically improve our road safety culture," he warned.
"Increasing fines clearly has not worked, so we must rethink enforcement and deterrents for drivers breaking the rules. Motorists need to know that if they do the wrong thing, they will be caught and will face significant consequences.
"There must be more focus on law and order on our roads."
Before Covid-19, road fatalities were on a downward trend. Had that continued, the annual toll would be closer to 200 lives lost. However, at the current trajectory, we are on track for another alarmingly high road toll in 2025, possibly reaching around 350 deaths, Cooney said.
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Across the country, governments are facing mounting pressure to take bold action to reduce national road fatalities, as data revealed the toll has been rising in recent years at a pace not seen since 1966.
Research conducted by the the federal Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE) showed that 1,300 people died on Australian roads in 2024 — up from 1,258 in 2023.
It's reflective of a four-year period of surging deaths our roads, which has not occurred since before seatbelts were made mandatory in the '60s. An alarming 359 people died in the three months to the end of December last year.
This grim statistic made 2024 the deadliest year on Australian roads since 2012, which also recorded 1,300 fatalities. The data further revealed that last year's road toll was 18.5 per cent higher than in 2021, the year a 10-year plan to halve road deaths was launched.
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