Safer Roads Save Lives.

Across Australia, four people die each day on the roads and over 85 people are seriously injured. The cost to the community is estimated at $17 billion per annum.

Encouraging drivers to act responsibly is just one way of preventing tragic loss of life and horrific injuries. Another is by upgrading roads to make them more forgiving.

How can we save lives on our roads?

Road Statistics

When it comes to survival, not all roads are equal.

It's estimated that of all road fatalities which could be avoided through improved safety, half would be avoided with road upgrades (as shown in the image above), including investment in new road construction and expenditure on safety related works.

Australia's National Road Safety Strategy 2011 - 2020 recognises the critical need to improve road features designed to reduce intersection, run-off-road and head-on crashes.

As a simple example, the risk of being involved in a crash on a road with narrow lanes (less than 2.8 wide) is 50 per cent higher than a road with wide lanes (greater than 3.6m wide).

Here are some other ways dangerous roads can be made safe.

Higher Risk.

Lower Risk.

Undivided Roads - Bad
Undivided road
Undivided roads with only one
lane in each direction makes it
riskier to overtake.
-vs-
Divided Roads - Good
Divided road
Freeways with wide medians and safety
barriers can handle higher traffic volumes
with virtually no chance of a head-on crash.
No Safety Barriers - Bad
No safety barriers
Roadside killers like trees, poles and
embankments can turn what would be
a minor crash into a severe one.
-vs-
Safety Barriers - Good
With safety barriers
If these hazards can't be removed,
safety barriers can dramatically lower
the risk of death and injury.
Unsealed or narrow shoulders - Bad
Unsealed or narrow shoulders
Unsealed or narrow shoulders are
unforgiving of simple mistakes and
can lead to a loss of control.
-vs-
Sealed shoulders - Good
Sealed shoulder
If a driver moves out of their lane,
a sealed shoulder offers extra space
to recover.
High risk intersections - Bad
High risk intersection
Roadside with lots of intersections are
less safe because of an increased risk
of brutal crashes with side-road traffic.
-vs-
Low risk intersections - Good
Low risk intersection
Low risk intersections have separate turning
lanes and are clearly visible day and night.
The best intersections have on/off ramps.

What can I do?

The challenge is to move our thinking from ways to simply limit the number of deaths on our road, to how to create a genuinely safe road system in which improving the safety of drivers, vehicles and roads is of mutual importance. Let's aim for 5 star drivers, in 5 star cars on 5 star roads.

Take part in the Decade of Action for Road Safety and call on your local road authority or MP to take action to make roads safe.