The statistics are in and they don't lie. Australia has recorded its , making 2024 the fourth consecutive year in which road fatalities have increased – something that hasn't happened since 1966, before seatbelts became mandatory in all new cars. or signup to continue reading The tragic news of another 1300 road deaths last year comes despite the record number of speed cameras infesting our roads, making them a major source of revenue for state governments, and news that Australia's most populous state will soon roll out even more of them to target average speed.
It also comes as we approach the halfway mark of the 10‐year National Road Safety Strategy agreed to by Australia's federal, state and territory governments in 2021, when the road toll spiked from its COVID lockdown low of 1097 the year prior and has continued to increase ever since. The five main 2030 targets of the government's current plan to drive down road carnage are reducing road deaths by 50 per cent and serious injuries by 30 per cent from a 2018-2020 baseline; zero road deaths of children aged under seven years; zero road deaths in CBD areas; and zero road deaths on all national highways and high-speed roads – none of which appear likely to be achieved. A step in the right direction was the long-awaited agreement of all states and territories to share critical road trauma data that could help stem the tide, and the federal government's to help them do so, starting with the $21.
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