12-YEAR HIGH: Urgent warning over deadly trend on Aussie roads
Governments are facing mounting pressure to take bold action to reduce road fatalities in Australia, as new data reveals the death 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. A mind-blowing 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.
Though driver and passenger deaths slightly decreased in 2024 compared with levels in 2023, roads became much more deadly for other users, including pedestrians.
Pedestrian deaths rose from 156 in 2023 to 167 in 2024 — a 7.1 per cent increase — while cyclist deaths jumped from 34 in 2023 to 38 in 2024, a significant rise of 11.8 per cent.
Motorcyclist deaths increased from 252 in 2023 to 278 in 2024 – an increase of 10.3 per cent – making last year the deadliest calendar year for motorbike deaths since 1989.
The landmark 2020 federal strategy to slash deaths by 2030 is "wildly off-track", according to the Australian Automobile Association (AAA). It has now has called on the Albanese government to force states to produce data about the safety scores of individual roads, if they plan on using federal funding to improve it.
Queensland's road fatalities rose from 277 in 2023 to 302 in 2024, while Western Australia saw an increase from 158 to 185. The Northern Territory experienced a sharp rise in deaths, climbing from 31 in 2023 to 58 in 2024, and the Australian Capital Territory's toll grew from four to 11 during the same period.
Although road fatalities rose nationally, some states and territories saw improvements in 2024 compared to 2023. Victoria's toll fell from 296 to 281, Tasmania's dropped from 35 to 32, and South Australia recorded a decline from 117 to 91. Meanwhile, fatalities in New South Wales remained unchanged at 340.
Although seatbelt use became mandatory in front seats in Australia in 1969 and for all seats by 1971, road fatalities have been rising in recent years at a pace not seen since 1966.
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The trajectory means no state or territory is on track to achieve the objectives of Australia's National Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030, to halve road deaths, the association's managing director Michael Bradley 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," Bradley said.
"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.''
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