Road safety management in Australia: building capacity through coordinated action

Reducing road trauma must be at the forefront of the Australian productivity and national economic debate, not simply a factor in transport management. The purpose of this submission is to draw attention to this vital subject, and to call for greater coordination of our response to address this major public health issue. Road trauma is arguably the highest ranking public health issue we face as a nation today. Each week in Australia 25 people die and 600 are seriously injured, and the ripple effect of each road trauma event to our families and communities is enormous. If the aim of the National Road Safety Strategy (NRSS) is reached – a target of a 30% reduction in road trauma by 2020 - this trauma will still have cost the Australian economy a massive $264b over the decade to 2020. If we increase Australia’s target to 50% (in line with the goals of Europe) we will save the economy $37b by the year 2020. More importantly, countless lives and injuries will be saved, as well as the ripple effects that will be felt across Australian society. Notwithstanding the impacts to society, the current level of economic impact from road trauma is simply unacceptable, and must be recognised as a significant factor hindering Australia’s productivity. It is only in this way that we can collectively expedite reductions in road trauma. The potential economic and social gains to Australia must not be ignored. It is now apparent that Australia’s performance in generating road death and injury reductions has not kept pace with world’s best standards. As detailed in the body of this report, Australia’s performance has not improved to the same degree as many Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries since the year 2000. Australia’s ranking has therefore been slipping, and we need to commit to measuring our achievements on a global scale if we are to make the progress that our society deserves.

• Record URL:
  http://acrs.org.au/publications/conference-papers/database/
• Authors:
  • McIntosh, J L
  • Howe, C L
• Conference:
  • Australasian Road Safety Research Policing Education Conference, 2014, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
• Publication Date: 2014-11

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: 35p
• Monograph Title: Australasian Road Safety Research, Policing and Education Conference, 12-14 November 2014, Melbourne, Australia

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Administration; Costs; Externalities; Injury severity; Planning; Social impacts; Traffic safety
• Uncontrolled Terms: International comparison; Safe systems (road users)
• Geographic Terms: Australia
• ATRI Terms: Crash costs; Crash countermeasure; Crash economics; Injury severity; International comparison; Social costs
• ITRD Terms: 1661: Accident prevention; 263: Economics of transport; 1623: Severity (accid, injury)
• Subject Areas: Finance; Planning and Forecasting; I10: Economics and Administration; I82: Accidents and Transport Infrastructure;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01563013
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: ARRB
• Files: ITRD, ATRI
• Created Date: May 15 2015 12:18PM