Alarming spike in road deaths is a national tragedy

An alarming spike in deaths across Australia is underway and no one is talking about it. In the 12 months to August 2023 there were 27% more pedestrians killed and 37% more bike riders killed in cities and towns across Australia. That includes 15 children who will never reach adulthood. 

NSW roads were our number one killer, with 65% more pedestrians killed in the last 12 months to August. In South Australia there were 50% more. 

Across all road users, deaths have increased by 8.4% in the last 12 months, with NSW up by 25% while South Australia and Western Australia are up by 22% and 16% respectively. 
This is a national tragedy that needs immediate action. 

The arms race for bigger, more dangerous vehicles 
"Driving is probably the most dangerous thing we will ever do, and as a normal citizen, it is the most likely way that you will kill another citizen,” says Adam Tranter, walking and cycling commissioner for West Midlands in the UK. "Cars are getting bigger, more comfortable, more protected. The more we lose sight of the fact that cars are very effective weapons when used incorrectly, we lull ourselves into a false sense of security," he said in The Guardian last month.

The surge in road deaths in Australia can be attributed to increased vehicle sizes, speeding and driver distraction. SUVs and utes have worse sightlines so it's harder for drivers to see people (some are worse than a tank), it takes longer to brake (due to weight) and the bonnet is much higher (hitting a person's skull and internal organs rather than hip or leg which increases the likelihood of death). Bullbars can make this even worse. 

This is evident when we compare pedestrian deaths in the USA, where the number of pedestrians killed each year in traffic rose 83% between 2009 to 2022, an average increase of around 6% a year. Vehicle sizes have also increased significantly over that period. 

By comparison, the European Commission has a target for ‘vision zero’ with no road deaths by 2050. It’s considering banning inexperienced drivers from operating SUVs and ensuring that all driver training includes safe behaviour around people walking and cycling. It’s also difficult and expensive to purchase and run an SUV in many European countries, whereas in Australia we often heavily subsidise them thanks to a generous $67,000 tax write-off for businesses (a subsidy that only recently dropped from $150,000).
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Meanwhile, Standards Australia is contemplating increasing car parking spaces by 20cm in length to accommodate these larger vehicles. 
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Photo by Better Streets volunteer Toby Thumpston at his local shopping centre

The current car parking standards were established in 1993 when a new Ford Falcon measured 4.92 metres long. Today, the most popular car is the Toyota HiLux dual cab ute at 5.27 metres long – giving it less than 15cm of breathing space in average parking spots.
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Two-thirds of new vehicle sales in Australia last year were SUVs, 4WDs or light commercial vehicles, which include utes.

Image from The Guardian

This arms race for bigger vehicles is leading to a catastrophic increase in deaths and horrific injuries. 

"Loosening your belt isn't the best way to resolve weight gain. We need to tackle this spike in deaths head on," says Sara Stace, President of Better Streets. “We need to stop sanitising terms such as 'Killed and Seriously Injured' which the industry simplifies to KSI," says Sara. "It downplays the devastation that people experience when their child is killed or they have to live the rest of their lives with a crippling disability. We're immunised to the 1,250 people killed on our roads every year.”

But aren’t new and electric vehicles safer and cleaner?
A counter argument we often hear about these big new vehicles is that they have lots of safety gear, like sensors and automated braking. However if these were truly working we’d see fatalities decreasing and clearly we’re not. Vehicle safety gear is mostly for protecting the occupants rather than people outside the vehicle, and does not ameliorate the inherent danger of military-sized trucks driving on our local streets.

In addition to the fatal consequences to humans, pets and wildlife, there’s also enormous climate and biosphere impacts. The embodied emissions and other materials in two- to three-ton vehicles causes vastly more wear and tear on the roads than regular vehicles. Even electrifying them won’t solve the problem of decarbonising and reducing resource consumption. McKinsey says an EV has roughly double the production footprint of a typical internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle.

Stephen Hodge from We Ride Australia points out that “a single Tesla 3 battery is equivalent to around 147 e-bike batteries, resources that could be used to help get people mobile much more economically and save valuable resources at the same time.”
And these massive batteries make them heavier and more dangerous. “EVs reinforce the car-dependent behaviour and approach to city-making that created the problem in the first place,” says Dr Catherine Knight, from Massey University in Aotearoa New Zealand.

What does Better Streets recommend?
Better Streets recommends three broad solutions to improve safety for people walking and cycling and get us closer to achieving Vision Zero:

1. Make it more difficult and expensive to buy and run SUVs/ utes and ban very large versions like the Ford F250
2. Reduce the default speed limit on local roads to 30km/h as Wales has done, since 90% of people can survive an impact with a vehicle travelling at that speed
3. Design streets to prioritise people walking and cycling, to make streets safer for everyone in our communities.

The role of governments
Governments in Australia have proven themselves willing to take radical action to save human lives and support public health and safety. Most notably in relation to world-leading anti-tobacco campaigns and rules (we were the first to ban smoking on flights), gun control, seat belt safety, and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The case of enormously dangerous cars and speeding on our roads should be no different. Governments need to urgently address the true causes for the rapidly escalating road deaths as a public health and safety emergency - and act immediately to protect lives. 

Our recommendations for all three levels of government are outlined below.
At a national level:

• Introduce a default urban speed limit of 30kmh on all local streets that aren’t classified as federal, state or regional roads. Australia did this successfully for 50kmh, and Wales reduced to 30kmh in September 2023.
• Increase import duties for SUVs and utes.
• Standards Australia could choose not to increase car parking sizes as a standard, instead car parking providers could elect to make some truck-size bays available if they choose to. 
• Change vehicle definitions to make large dangerous vehicles illegal, just like e-bikes with more than 250 watts are illegal because they're deemed too dangerous.
• Stop subsidising motor vehicles of any type. When you're paying $247,000 for an F250 you don't need a government handout. 
• Tighten import rules to outright ban dangerous large vehicles. You can't legally import an electric bike that can assist more than 25kmh or 250 watts, but you can import an F250 and get it adjusted from left-hand to right-hand drive. 
• Reform civil liability law to assume default liability for drivers of larger vehicles when they injure or kill people (as is the case in the Netherlands)
• Enforce bans on bull-bars and shut-down the aftermarket industry by applying (and publicising use of) existing laws.

At a state government level:

• Introduce a default urban speed limit of 30km/h on local streets, and lobby for this to apply nationwide. 
• Significantly increase the annual costs for registration and CTP (compulsory insurance) for SUVs and utes increasing cost by every extra kilo of weight, and much higher insurance premiums for drivers with poor driving records.
• Require a special licence to operate a large dangerous vehicle like an F250 (including learning how to park correctly).
• If state governments are not willing to do this, then require that all standard driver tests be undertaken in a large SUV so every driver in Australia proves they can operate one safely.
• As with alcohol, ban P-platers from driving utes and SUVs over a specified weight and power.
• And for all drivers:
  • When drivers renew their licence, require an online questionnaire about road safety which tests how to behave around non-drivers on the road, rules drivers often misunderstand, and any changes to road rules in the last 10 years. If they fail, they wait 24 hours before re-sitting the test. 
  • Specified hours of mandatory training and tests for all learner drivers on how to behave around people outside the vehicle (as per the EU).

​For local governments:

• Introduce a default urban speed limit of 30kmh on local streets (which may require state government approval). Lobby for the state government for this to apply statewide. 
• Charge a much higher rate for parking owners for vehicles over 2 tons (after all, it costs councils millions annually to maintain roads)
• Don’t increase the size of on-street and off-street parking bays, and don’t try to make it easier to navigate around a car park (we’ve all watched this with a touch of schadenfreude)
• Manage parking throughout the council area to disincentivise driving and invest in walking and cycling infrastructure. ​

Reference: vox.com