No Australian state is on track to achieve the target for road death reductions, according to the Australian Automobile Association (AAA).
The AAA’s quarterly report, “Benchmarking the Performance of the National Road Safety Strategy” evaluates the nation’s progress towards the National Road Safety Strategy’s aim to reduce road deaths by at least 30% between 2011 and 2020.
For the first time in the history of the benchmarking, all six states are above the national Strategy targets. Last year, 1,225 Australians died in road crashes, which exceeded the Strategy’s national target by 99 deaths. December 2017 saw the highest monthly number of road fatalities in six years, with 129 road deaths.
“These figures should serve as a wake-up call to state and federal governments, as they clearly show our Road Safety Strategy to be a failure,” said AAA Chief Executive Michael Bradley. “The time has come for a clear-eyed assessment of the factors responsible for this failure and the changes required at a state and federal level.”
