Australia has a road toll problem going in the 'wrong direction’



Australia Automobile Association Managing Director Michael Bradley says Australia has a road toll problem which is “going in the wrong direction”.

Mr Bradley joined Sky News Australia to discuss the push for transparency on road data as well as the new vehicle efficiency standards.

“To understand it, the data we need is collected by state governments, it’s not released by them, it’s not shared with anyone, we can’t compare what’s happening in different jurisdictions,” he said.

“We can’t talk to you about the quality of their road network, we can’t talk to you about the causes of the crashes that killed 1,286 people last year, we can’t talk to you about which law enforcement regime or which road rules are working, and which ones aren’t.

“All of this is collected, none of this is shared.”

source

32 thoughts on “Australia has a road toll problem going in the 'wrong direction’”

  1. At the end of the day, the is no cure for stupid & inattentiveness. Like Net Zero, 'Zero Fatalities' is magical thinking but a worthy aspiration.
    Mitigating stupid starts at school with 'old school' realities. 1st year high school: Visit to Dept Road Safety for 1 hour of 'Road Trauma' film, like we did as kids in the 70-80's.
    Kids NEED to be exposed to reality. The 'brutal reality' our first responders take home to their kids..or try too.

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  2. The progressive position on road safety is that speed limits in rural Australia should be reduced to 60kmh and 30 in the city. That is because they do not drive and live within 10km of a capital city GPO.

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  3. I can tell you exactly why the road toll is increasing, and why the government doesn't want to release the data. It's an immigration issue. That's why there is a strange pattern emerging. You are giving people who have never driven a full Australian licence without ever testing them. Everyone who immigrates here knows the scam and how to get a free licence. They will never fix it.

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  4. The road toll isn't an indicator of things getting worse because numbers don't expose the real reasons. For example, there were a number of fatalities in a bus crash with one driver, all those are in the road toll. Also, we've had a large increase in our population due to Labor's policies putting more drivers on the road. Statistically, more drivers means more road incidents.

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  5. Australia has both an acute and chronic, out-of-control cost-of-living CRISIS almost completely unaddressed by its utterly feckless, wealthy donor-addled elected representatives. Road tolls? 🙄 Small potatoes added to the gargantuan housing CRISIS engulfing your nation.

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  6. The road toll climbs independently of a policing approach in which the traffic offences that are easiest to detect are the most serious, if 'most serious' is synonymous with 'most expensive'. Thats why the data is hidden, because its a lucrative lie.

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  7. This is nonsense! There were 70 more deaths last year than the year before…..but how many new drivers were there?! The road toll must be expressed as a percentage of the total number of drivers, not the preposterous way they report it, coz if there were 60,000 new drivers during the same period, then it means the road toll went DOWN….jeeeezzzzz people get so bamboozled by statistics and scare tactics….but this is nothing new, coz the average Ozzie is a nincompoop.

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  8. The States in Australia are only interested in fining drivers as much as they can. Take Spain for eg: population 48 million & had 1815 road deaths in 2023. Australia population 26 million but had 1266 deaths. Open road speed limit in Spain 120, brilliant roads & great public transport connections. Do the sums.

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  9. So much for your authoritarian speed cameras,lower speed limits, larger fines, roundabouts and speed humps acting to reduce speed ( actually causes accidents and fatalities). The government is a disjointed departmental mess! I remember when there were no roundabouts no speed bumps ( even in car parks) and 3 speed zones. One in the city and two for the country. 60, 80, 100km. And the road toll was very acceptable back then. (Weren’t checking every 50 meters for a different speed zone)

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  10. Get the jacked up 4x4s off the roads. They might be good for off-roading or the beach, they are not good for a freeway at 110. Not that any of them actually obey the speed limit. There's definitely a certain psychopathic narcissistic tendency in that demographic. It really pisses me off when you see the cops harassing people for their cars being too low, too noisy, having blow of valves etc etc, yet these yobs can jack their cars up and run off road tyres on the freeway and get away with it.?!

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  11. If the data had not problems, it would be released. It is impossible to make decisions on road safety without knowing the causes of road crashes.
    I watch many videos on road crashes recorded by dashcams and there is the frightening reality that some drivers of stolen cars think that they are driving a car in a video game.

    Cleary watching the videos on YouTube, it is obvious that some people have no idea of the road rules so who issued a drivers licence to these people? It is high time that state governments work together with organisations such as the RACV and others, to allow proper analysis of cause of crashes to be made and this includes all crashes so that insurance fraud and other related issue can be detected.

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  12. There has been a massive increase cars on the roads with all of the density in thousands of units being built. This has meant that it now takes alot longer to get around and alot of cars are taking risks and drivers are driving dangerously who endanger the lives of other road users. You only have to watch Dash Cams Australia to see the usual culprits Utes, Motor bikes, BMW'S, Mercedes and Audi's doing the craziest things on the roads and taking unbelievable risks on the road. What ever the road toll is its a miracle that it isn't double.

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