Australia’s road safety crisis as crashes increase

Increases in the numbers of road crashes and road deaths are giving cause for concern in Australia. The gain in the country’s road fatality rate is of note as it comes after a 40 year period in which those killed or seriously injured (KSI) have been reducing. Certain sections of the country’s road network have been identified as being of particular risk to drivers, with moves in hand to improve safety. The Australian Automobile Association has revealed that there were 15,339 crashes in the country that resu
December 22, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Increases in the numbers of road crashes and road deaths are giving cause for concern in Australia. The gain in the country’s road fatality rate is of note as it comes after a 40 year period in which those killed or seriously injured (KSI) have been reducing. Certain sections of the country’s road network have been identified as being of particular risk to drivers, with moves in hand to improve safety. The Australian Automobile Association has revealed that there were 15,339 crashes in the country that resulted in KSI incidents. In the period from January to September 2016 there were 1,273 road deaths in Australia, an increase of 86 over the same period in 2015. Meanwhile over 2,500 people were seriously injured in road crashes.

Western Sydney’s Parramatta Road between Concord and the M7 Westlink has been identified as having the highest rate of serious crashes in the country. Carrying around 100,000 vehicles/day, it has high traffic volumes and there have been 788 serious crashes and six deaths on this stretch of road. Meanwhile there are four roads in Queensland figuring amongst Australia’s 10 most dangerous stretches and the M1 section from the Smith Street Motorway to the Logan Motorway suffered 19 road deaths and 563 serious crashes. As with the road link in Sydney, this is a high capacity route and carries some 137,000 vehicles/day.

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