MOTORING lobby body RAA is calling for all levels of government to invest more to reduce road fatalities in regional Australia.
Road Safety senior manager Charles Mountain said there had been little spent on rural roads in the past five years and called the lack of progress “appalling”.
“Any reductions in the state’s annual road toll have been as a result of reductions in fatalities in the Adelaide metro area,’’ he said.
“It’s extremely disappointing that in the same five-year period there has never been a single month which did not record a road fatality.”
A report into the National Road Safety Strategy 2011-202 was released this week, which attempts to identify the key factors involved in road trauma, including the increases in the national road toll recorded in 2015 and 2016.
The report found that failing to improve the present situation will result in a further 12,000 people being killed and 360,000 injured at a cost of more than $300 billion across the nation in the next decade alone.
“RAA considers the report’s call for road safety to be part of the ‘business as usual’ approach across all levels of government to be non-negotiable,’’ Mr Mountain said.
The association backs the report’s recommendation for a minimum commitment to a $3 billion a year national road-safety fund.
“We want to see a dramatic reduction in the state’s road toll and will continue to lobby all levels of government to cut road deaths and injuries,” Mr Mountain said.
