Australia’s roads are getting deadlier, as a four-year period of surging fatalities marks a trend of increasing danger not recorded since the 1960s, before seatbelts were compulsory.
Annual road fatality data collated by the federal government’s Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE) shows that 1,300 people died on Australian roads in 2024, up from 1,258 in 2023.
A sharp spike in fatalities towards the end of the year, with 359 people dying in the three months to the end of December, confirmed 2024 as the deadliest year for Australian roads since 2012, when the figure was also 1,300.
Last year’s road toll was 18.5% higher than 2021, when a 10-year plan to halve road deaths was introduced.
The Australian Automobile Association (AAA) has called on the Albanese government to force states to produce data about the safety scores of an individual road if they want federal funding to improve it.
The annual data also revealed that while driver and passenger deaths slightly decreased in 2024 compared to the previous year, roads became far more deadly for other users.
Pedestrian deaths rose from 156 in 2023 to 167 in 2024, a 7.1% increase, while cyclist deaths jumped from 34 in 2023 to 38 in 2024, an 11.8% increase.
Motorcyclist deaths increased from 252 in 2023 to 278 in 2024 – an increase of 10.3% – making last year the deadliest calendar year for motorbike deaths since 1989.
Deaths in Queensland grew from 277 in 2023 to 302 in 2024, while Western Australia’s toll increased from 158 to 185. There were jumps in deaths in the Northern Territory, from 31 in 2023 to 58 in 2024, while the Australian Capital Territory’s total rose from four to 11 in 2024.
While there has been a consistent increase nationally, some states and territories posted improvements in death tolls in 2024 compared with 2023, with Victoria recording a drop from 296 to 281, while Tasmania’s total dropped from 35 to 32 and South Australia’s dropped from 117 to 91. Deaths in New South Wales were 340, the same figure as in 2023.
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 AAA said.
Although wearing a seatbelt in the front seat of cars became compulsory in Australia in 1969 and were required on all seats by 1971, the death toll has been increasing in recent years at a rate not seen since 1966.
However, the AAA noted that progress on other objectives of the strategy, related to serious injuries on roads, were impossible to measure, because states and territories had not been forthcoming with data.
after newsletter promotion
While the four consecutive years of increases have been in terms of total deaths, as opposed to per capita to take into account population growth, the AAA is still alarmed given the national strategy objective was to halve total deaths.
Road safety academics have considered a range of possible factors behind the increasing road toll, including deteriorating road quality and speed limits which are too high for smaller and rural roads, as well as impatience and poor driving habits which developed on emptier streets during lockdowns.
Academics have also flagged the significant rise in SUV ownership over the past decade and their potential to lead to a sense of security which can make drivers less concerned about other road users’ safety, as well as the larger vehicles being more dangerous in collisions.
With the industry still unclear about how to reverse the trend of increasing road deaths, the AAA spent much of last year campaigning the federal government for better information about fatalities and serious injuries. In November, states and territories agreed to begin providing more data, including about the causes of crashes and the effectiveness of traffic police enforcement.
Part of the data that states hold concerns the condition of individual roads, assessed using a standardised five-star scoring system known as AusRAP which uses engineering and other analysis to identify which roads need the most significant safety upgrades.
The AAA said it wanted federal funding for any road to be contingent on states and territories providing its AusRAP score, with the peak motoring body believing this requirement would be a way to ensure road funding is not misused for pork barrelling.
“The AAA believes this transparency will save lives, while also showing Australians whether politicians are spending their taxes to save lives rather than winning votes in marginal electorates,” it said in a statement.
Michael Bradley, the managing director of the AAA, said “this critical data must be embedded into the road funding allocation process so investment can be prioritised to our most dangerous roads”.
“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,” he said.
