ROAD SAFETY REPORT 2021 | AUSTRALIA

AUSTRALIA
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ROAD SAFETY REPORT 2021 | AUSTRALIA

AUSTRALIA
Based on provisional data, Australia recorded 1 094 road fatalities in 2020, representing a
7.8% decrease compared to 2019. Australia has not achieved the target established under
the National Road Safety Strategy (NRSS) 2011-2020 (at least 30% reductions in fatalities
and serious injuries). In December 2021, the National Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030
was launched. It sets out Australia’s road safety objectives over the next decade. It
includes key priorities for action and targets to reduce the annual number of fatalities byat least 50% and serious injuries by at least 30% by 2030.

Road safety management and strategy
The number of road deaths peaked in1970 with 3 708 reported road
fatalities. Since 1970, road deaths
have steadily decreased with someyearly fluctuations. Improvement wasparticularly marked in the early
1990s. More recently, the decrease infatalities has continued but at a muchslower pace.

Australia: Quick facts

Key measures contributing to the
reduction in road deaths, particularly
over the last decade, have been
implementing
intensive
speed
compliancemeasures,theprogressive introduction of graduatedlicencing restrictions, targeted safety
investment in road infrastructure andcontinuous
vehiclesafetyimprovements.

Volume of traffic: +42% between 2000 and 2019

In
Australia’s
federalsystem,government responsibilities for roadsafety vary across jurisdictions. The
Australian Government is responsible
for regulating safety standards for
new vehicles and for allocating
infrastructure resources, including forsafety, across the national highway
and local road networks.

Population: 25.7 million
GDP per capita: USD 53 176
Road network: 1 027 545 km (2018)•urban roads: 15%•

roads outside urban areas: 85%

Registered motor vehicles: 19.8 million•

cars: 74%•

goods vehicles: 20%•

motorcycles: 4%

Speed limits:•urban roads (not arterial): 50 km/h (increasinguse of 40 km/h or lower limits in urban areas
with high pedestrian activities)•

urban roads (arterial): 60-80 km/h•

rural roads (divided): 100 km/h•

rural roads (undivided): 100-110 km/h•

motorways: 100 km/h (often set to 110 km/h;
130 km/h in the Northern Territory)

Limits on Blood Alcohol Content:•

general drivers: 0.5 g/l•

professional drivers: 0.0 g/l•

novice drivers: 0.0 g/l

Road fatalities: 1 094•
pedestrians: 12%•

cyclists: 4%•

car occupants: 48%•

moped riders and motorcyclists: 17%•
other: 19%
Road fatalities per 100 000 population: 4.3
Road fatalities per 10 000 vehicles: 0.6
Cost of road crashes: 1.8% of GDP (2006)
All data 2020 unless otherwise stated.

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ROAD SAFETY REPORT 2021 | AUSTRALIAState and territory governments are responsible for funding, planning, designing andoperating the road network; managing vehicle registration and driver licensing systems;
and regulating and enforcing road user behaviour. Local governments have responsibilities
for funding, planning, designing and operating the road networks in their local areas.
The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications
has a range of functions that support the Australian Government’s role in road safety.
These include administering vehicle safety standards for new vehicles, administering
infrastructure programs such as the AUD 3 billion Road Safety Program and the National
Black Spot Program, administering the awareness, innovation and young driver programs
and producing national road safety statistics.
The Australian Government has established an Office of Road Safety in the Department ofInfrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications in 2019 to deliver
the Government’s new and existing road safety programmes, engage with road safety
stakeholders, co-ordinate performance monitoring, develop and implement the National
Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030 and develop the Road Safety Data Hub.
State, territory and federal transport ministers established the first National Road Safety
Strategy in 1992. The Safe System approach used by other OECD member countries was
adopted during the period of the subsequent 2000-2010 National Road Safety Strategy. It
aimed to reduce the rate of road fatalities relative to the population by 40% in the statedperiod. An actual reduction in the road fatality rate of 34% was achieved over the period.
The National Road Safety Strategy 2011-2020 was based on Safe System principles andwas framed by the guiding vision that no person should be killed or seriously injured on
Australia's roads. As a step towards this long-term vision, the strategy presents a 10-yearplan to reduce the annual number of both deaths and serious injuries on Australian roads
by at least 30%. An actual reduction in road fatalities of 19% was achieved over the period.
In December 2021, the National Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030 was launched.

Latest road safety measures
In Australia’s federal system, all levels of government implement a range of measures toreduce deaths and serious injuries within their specific areas of responsibility. The National
Road Safety Strategy 2021-30 sets out Australia’s road safety objectives over the next
decade and includes key priorities for action and targets to reduce the annual number offatalities by at least 50% and serious injuries by at least 30% by 2030. The Strategy
continues the commitment to the Safe System approach and strengthens all elements of
the road transport system under three key themes: safe roads, safe vehicles and safe roaduse with speed management embedded in all key themes. The Strategy adopts a social
model approach to foster a road safety culture across society and make road safetybusiness-as-usual. The National Road Safety Strategy represents all governments’commitment to delivering significant reductions in road trauma, putting Australia on a pathto achieve ‘Vision Zero’ or zero deaths and serious injuries on their roads by 2050.

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ROAD SAFETY REPORT 2021 | AUSTRALIAThe Strategy sets the direction for road safety in Australia for the next decade. It outlines
key priorities for reducing road trauma and identifies areas where improvement is needed
most. The Strategy will drive genuine road safety reform over the next decade by focusing
on nine priority areas:1.

infrastructure planning and investment

2.

regional road safety

3.

remote road safety

4.

vehicle safety

5.

heavy vehicle safety

6.

workplace road safety

7.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians

8.

vulnerable road users

9.

risky road use.

Costs of road crashes
The annual economic cost of road crashes in Australia is an estimated AUD 27 billion peryear, based on 2006 data (1.8% of GDP). A willingness-to-pay methodology was used tovalue the human losses from road crashes.
The estimated cost includes non-reported crashes and injuries.

Safety performance indicators
Speed
Australia does not have reliable national data on the contribution of speed to serious
crashes. Police crash reports have suggested that excessive speed is a factor in about
one-third of all fatal crashes, though this is likely to be underestimated.
Statistical series and other evaluation studies in individual jurisdictions indicate thatspeed management measures have made an essential contribution to reducing road
fatalities and injuries. Between 1997 and 2003, except for the Northern Territory, allAustralian jurisdictions lowered their urban default speed limit from 60 km/h to 50 km/h.
The evaluation study in New South Wales showed that the mean speed decreased by 0.5
km/h, while the total number of crashes decreased by 25.3% and the number of persons
injured by 22.3%.
National data on speed distributions are not available. Obtaining such data has been
identified as a priority to support the effective monitoring of progress under the National
Road Safety Strategy.

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ROAD SAFETY REPORT 2021 | AUSTRALIA

Under Australia’s National Road Safety Strategy, there have been moves to align betterposted speed limits with the objective risk profiles of roads. This has led, for example, toan expansion of lower urban speed zones (typically 40 km/h) in areas with high levels ofpedestrian and cycling activity. The National Road Safety Action Plan 2018-2020 stressed
the importance of reviewing speed limits on high-risk regional and remote roads.
Over the last ten years, most Australian jurisdictions have taken steps to strengthen
speed enforcement programmes, particularly through increased use of mobile and fixedcameras. In recent years, several jurisdictions have introduced, or planned to introduce,
point-to-point camera systems to measure average speed, though generally only amodest scale.
The National Road Safety Action Plan recommended increasing the deployment of pointto-point and mobile cameras to detect speed in all jurisdictions. It also set as a criticalaction the development of a national speed enforcement strategy and greater use oftechnology for a range of enforcement outcomes.
Drink-driving
Driving under the influence of alcohol is another major cause of road crashes in Australia.
In 2020, 139 deaths resulted from crashes involving a driver or a motorcycle rider with
an illegal BAC. This figure may underestimate the extent to which alcohol affects
Australian road safety as fatality counts for these measures use lower-bound estimates
due to a substantial number of cases with unknown values.
In Australia, driving a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.5 g/l or
higher is illegal. Lower BAC limits apply to truck, bus and taxi drivers (typically 0.2 g/l)
and novice drivers (0.0 g/l). Australia uses the exact definition recommended by theEuropean Union project SafetyNet to define drink-driving crashes as any crash in which
any active participant has a BAC level above the legal limit.
All jurisdictions have had considerable success in reducing the contribution of alcohol toroad trauma, mainly attributable to the combination of intensive random breath-testing
programmes and ongoing public education campaigns. While absolute numbers of
alcohol-related fatalities have continued to decline over the past decade, the involvementof alcohol in fatalities remains significant (12.7% of deaths in 2020).
All states and territories have mandatory alcohol interlock programmes for high range
drink-drivers and repeat offenders. They continue to review and adjust these to improvetheir effectiveness in addressing drink-driving. To complement more extensive operations
elsewhere, they maintain highly visible random breath testing, including car-based
operations on the rural network.

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ROAD SAFETY REPORT 2021 | AUSTRALIA

Drugs and driving
The combination of drug use and driving is a concern in Australia. According to official
statistics, 178 deaths occurred in 2020 from crashes involving a driver or a motorcycle
rider who had taken an illegal drug. This figure may underestimate the extent to which
illegal drugs affects Australian road safety as national reporting of drug data is incomplete
and inconsistent. It has been estimated that in 2020 the proportion of road deaths fromcrashes involving drug-impaired drivers or motorcycle riders increased 73% since 2017
in six jurisdictions.
As part of the National Road Safety Action Plan 2018-2020, Australia listed “increasingroadside drug testing significantly in all states and territories” as a Priority Action, andstate and territory road authorities have been working together with police through a
National Drug Driving Working Group to develop a national best practice approach to
reducing drug driving. Individual jurisdictions aim for a 50% to 100% increase in roadsidetesting.
Use of mobile phones while driving
With increased reliance on, and use of, mobile phones and other devices, distracted
driving is recognised as a concerning and potentially growing problem in Australia.
However, there is no official definition of “distracted driving” for national statisticalcollection. Mobile phone use is of particular concern. In 2020, 56 232 infringements were
issued, a 41.7% decrease from 2019.
Across Australia, it is illegal to use a hand-held phone while driving. In some jurisdictions,learner and provisional licence holders are subject to further restrictions, including a total
ban on phone use while driving. Breaches attract fines and licence demerit points. In
recent years, state governments have undertaken promotional campaigns to warn of thedangers of distracted driving.
Seat belt and helmet use
Seat belt use has been compulsory in Australia since the 1970s. In most states, there
are licence demerit point penalties and fines for unbelted drivers. In some states, demerit
points apply to drivers with unbelted passengers (in addition to penalties for unbelted
adult passengers).
Children 7 years of age and under must be seated in a rear seat (if available) and beadequately restrained in an appropriate child restraint or booster seat, considering theirweight and height.

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ROAD SAFETY REPORT 2021 | AUSTRALIA

Objective nationwide data on use rates are not available. Still, non-national observational
surveys and self-report data from national surveys indicate that wearing rates for both
front and rear-seat occupants are now more than 95% (2018).
Despite generally high wearing rates, 154 vehicle occupants were killed in 2020 who were
not wearing a restraint. Analysis indicates that this high figure results from a high crash
involvement rate among those who do not wear belts and that they are more likely to be
killed if involved in a crash.

Road safety data for Australia at a glance
Table 1. Long-term road safety trends for Australia

Reported safety data

1990

2000

2010

2018

2019

2020

2019

2020 % change over
2010
2000
1990

Fatalities

2 331

1 817

1 350

1 135

1 187

1 094

-7.8

-19.0

-39.8

Injured persons hospitalised

25 00826 96332 775

..

..

..

..

..

..

..

Deaths per 100 000 population
Deaths per 10 000 registeredvehiclesDeaths per billion vehicle
kilometres
Fatalities by road user

13.7

9.5

6.1

4.5

4.7

4.3

-9.0

-30.5

-55.4

-68.8

2.3

1.5

0.8

0.6

0.6

0.6

-9.2

-34.3

-62.4

-76.1

14.4

9.8

5.9

4.3

4.5

..

..

..

..

..

Pedestrians

420

287

172

178

159

136

-14.5

-20.9

-52.6

-67.6

Cyclists
Riders of motorised twowheelers
Passenger car occupants

80

31

38

35

39

41

5.1

7.9

32.3

-48.8

262

191

224

191

214

190

-11.2

-15.2

-0.5

-27.5

1 569

1 302

722

532

550

524

-4.7

-27.4

-59.8

-66.6

0

6

194

199

225

203

-9.8

4.6

3283.3..

0-14 years

184

114

56

34

33

41

24.2

-26.8

-64.0

-77.7

15-17 years

129

104

53

40

28

41

46.4

-22.6

-60.6

-68.2

18-20 years

340

204

138

85

89

73

-18.0

-47.1

-64.2

-78.5

Other road users-53.1

Fatalities by age group21-24 years

278

178

141

96

111

88

-20.7

-37.6

-50.6

-68.3

25-64 years

1 046

923

743

635

650

639

-1.7

-14.0

-30.8

-38.9

65-74 years

..

127

96

114

106

75

-29.2

-21.9

-40.9

..

≥ 75 years

..

167

122

129

169

133

-21.3

9.0

-20.4

..

Urban roads

..

..

636

419

432

391

-9.5

-38.5

..

..

Roads outside urban areas

..

..

709

713

753

700

-7.0

-1.3

..

..

162 233

184 593228 532

263 408

261 948

..

..

..

..

..

10 081

12 37316 06119 17319 50519 805

1.5

23.3

60.1

96.5

590.7

650.2

729.0

767.5

769.0

771.0

0.3

5.8

18.6

30.5

Fatalities by road type

Traffic data
Vehicle kilometres (millions)Registered vehicles(thousands)
Registered vehicles per 1 000
population

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ROAD SAFETY REPORT 2021 | AUSTRALIA

Figure 1. Evolution of road fatalities, motorisation, traffic and GDP in Australia,
2000-20
Index 2000 = 100

Figure 2. Road fatalities per 100 000 inhabitants in Australia in comparison with
IRTAD countries, 2020

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ROAD SAFETY REPORT 2021 | AUSTRALIA

Figure 3. Road fatalities per 10 000 vehicles in Australia in comparison with
IRTAD countries, 2020

Note: in Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Hungary registered vehicles do not include
mopeds.
Figure 4. Road fatalities per billion vehicle-kilometres in Australia in comparison
with IRTAD countries, 20199

ROAD SAFETY REPORT 2021 | AUSTRALIA

Figure 5. Evolution of road fatalities in Australia by user category, age groupand road type, 2010-20

Figure 6. Road fatalities in Australia by user category, 2020

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ROAD SAFETY REPORT 2021 | AUSTRALIA

Figure 7. Road fatalities in Australia by road type, 2020

Figure 8. Road fatality rate by user category and age group in Australia, 2020
Rate per 100 000 population in the same age group

Table 2. Cost of road crashes in Australia, 2006
Total (AUD)
Fatalities

9.9 billion

Injury and disability

10.3 billion

Property damage and other costs

6.9 billion

Total

27.1 billion

Total as % of GDP

1.8

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ROAD SAFETY REPORT 2021 | AUSTRALIA

Table 3. Seat belt and helmet wearing rates
Percentages
2000

2012

2018

General (driver and passenger)

96

97

97

Urban roads (driver)

..

97

97

Rural roads (driver)

..

94

97

89

94

95

..

99

99

Front seats

Rear seats
GeneralHelmetRiders of motorised two-wheelers

Research and resources
Publications
Australian cycling safety: https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2015/is_071.aspx.
National Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030: https://www.roadsafety.gov.au/nrss/.
Websites
Austroads programme of road safety research: https://austroads.com.au/projects.
Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications:
https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/.
Office of Road Safety: https://officeofroadsafety.gov.au.
Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics: https://bitre.gov.au/.
Road safety statistics: https://bitre.gov.au/statistics/safety/.
Road safety performance: http://roadsafety.gov.au/performance/.
2018 Inquiry into the National Road Safety Strategy:
https://www.roadsafety.gov.au/nrss/inquiry.aspx.
2019 Review into National Road Safety Governance Arrangements:
https://www.roadsafety.gov.au/nrss/2019-governance-review.aspx.
Austroads: http://www.austroads.com.au/.
ARRB (Australian Road Research Board): https://www.arrb.com.au/.
Monash University Accident Research Centre:
https://www.monash.edu/muarc/research/research-areas/transport-safety

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ROAD SAFETY REPORT 2021 | AUSTRALIA

Definition, methodology, data collection•

Road fatality: a person who died immediately or within 30 days of a crash.

•

Seriously/slightly injured: Australia does not have systems in place to reliably
measure national indicators of injuries from road crashes, in part due tojurisdictional differences in injury definitions and reporting arrangements.

•

The current agreed definition of a serious injury for national reporting is confirmed
admitted to the hospital, irrespective of the length of stay or medical severity rating.

A national pilot project was undertaken to link hospital and crash datasets, successfullycompleted in April 2019. A second stage was underway to extend linkage to all jurisdictions
and produce historical linked series. This second stage will provide baseline data for the
next National Road Safety Strategy and inform future consideration of a national definitionof what constitutes a serious injury. After completing this second stage in mid-2022,
establishing an ongoing monitoring process may become possible.
In Australia, crash data are collected and validated by the police and transport agencies ineach of the eight states and territories.
A national crash database of casualty crashes, managed by the federal Department ofInfrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications, is used forreporting against the National Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030 fatality targets. This
database is the source of the fatality data included in this report. It is not possible to use
this database for national reporting of injury road crash data as there are substantial
differences in the injury definitions adopted by the Australian states and territories.

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