The new and updated national road safety strategy launched last month aims to reduce road deaths by 50 percent by 2030.
Developed by the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA), state and territory governments, and the Commonwealth, the strategy also aims to reduce serious injuries by 30 percent by 2030.
The release of the National Road Safety Strategy 2021-30 follows new statistics showing that 1126 people died on Australia’s roads in the 12 months to December 2021, a 1.4 percent increase on the year before.
To enable local governments to invest adequately in safer local road networks, ALGA’s federal election priorities include increasing Roads to Recovery funding to $800 million per annum (an additional $300 million per annum) and boosting the Black Spot Program to $200 million per annum over four years – and addressing the South Australian Road funding anomaly.
In its 2020-21 federal budget, the Morrison Government announced $2 billion for road safety to support the new strategy.
The money will fund projects such as treatments, cycleways, road-sealing, shoulders, barriers and audio-tactile line markings (ATLM) and will go primarily to the state and territory governments, with the possibility of some money flowing through to local road projects.
The budget also commits $5.5 million to be invested in establishing a National Road Safety Data Hub to assess the effectiveness of road safety efforts by all Australian governments in moving towards zero fatalities and serious injuries by 2050 (Vision Zero).