Cyclist and pedestrian deaths rise on Australian roads
The bodies of a man and woman, both in their 30s, have been found in a home south of Brisbane. Photo: AAP
Australia’s road toll continues to climb, with more than 100 people killed in road accidents in just one month.
New road toll figures, released by the federal transport department on Thursday, showed Australia recorded its highest August road toll since 2018, with fatalities rising by more than eight per cent.
New South Wales and South Australia recorded the highest increases, with both up by more than 20 per cent.
Cyclists and pedestrians recorded even larger increases.
The rising toll came despite national targets to halve road deaths by 2030.
Australian Automobile Association managing director Michael Bradley said the high death toll was not only disturbing, but would be hard to address without detailed information on why road accidents had occurred.
The national motoring body has been calling on state and territory governments to provide detailed information on fatalities, including factors that may have contributed to accidents, and the state of the roads on which they occurred.
Current data also fails to note serious injuries in road accidents, despite targets to reduce them.
“Until Australia gets serious about understanding the crashes occurring today, we have no credible plan to prevent the crashes of tomorrow,” Mr Bradley said.
“Data reporting is the first step to preventing crashes and saving lives as it will generate the evidence on which future transport policy can be based.”
He said providing detailed crash information should be made a requirement under the national partnership agreement between the federal and state governments currently being developed.
Statistics showed 103 people were killed in road accidents during August, and 1250 people died during the past 12 months – an increase of 8.4 per cent.
New South Wales and South Australia recorded the highest yearly road toll rises at 25 and 22 per cent, while the number decreased in the Northern Territory, the ACT and Tasmania.
Figures also showed cyclist road deaths rose by 37 per cent over the past year, with 48 deaths recorded, while pedestrian fatalities jumped 27 per cent to 178 deaths.
The growing road toll came despite targets in the National Road Safety Strategy to halve transport deaths in the lead up to 2030.
Government figures show the current road toll is 119 per cent higher than the target.
-AAP
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