Page 3849 - Week 12 - Thursday, 24 October 2013
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In Australia, all jurisdictions have committed to improving road safety under the national road safety strategy, which is aiming to achieve a national reduction of at least 30 per cent by 2020 in the number of road deaths and serious injuries that occur every year.
In the ACT in 2012 there were 8,312 on-road traffic crashes reported which involved 16,271 vehicles and resulted in 892 casualties, including 12 fatalities and 210 hospital admissions. Around 46 per cent of all casualties involved people younger than 30 years of age, with the 20 to 24 age group accounting for nearly 17 per cent of all casualties.
These figures translate into major health and economic costs. In 2012 there were approximately 1,506 people admitted to an ACT public hospital following involvement in a road accident. These patients included pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, but the majority were car occupants. There have been six fatalities on our roads this year, each of them a terrible trauma for friends and family, and often for the emergency services personnel who respond.
The ACT government is committed to reducing the number of deaths and life-changing injuries that occur on our roads. This requires a systemic, evidence-based approach to safety investments and programs, which is the approach of our ACT road safety strategy 2011-20. The road safety strategy shows that improving road safety requires more than just safer roads. It also requires safer vehicles, safer speeds and, of course, safer people.
In line with this, the strategy is guided by the “safe system” approach, which is regarded globally as a best practice approach to road safety. It involves a shared responsibility for road safety and relies on the components of safe speeds, safe roads and roadsides, safe vehicles, safe people and safe behaviours. The aim of this approach is not only to minimise the number of crashes but to ensure that, when crashes do occur, they do not result in death or serious injury.
The ACT road safety strategy is supported by multi-year action plans which include a range of education, encouragement, engineering, enforcement, evaluation and support measures. The current action plan, which covers the period 2011-13, has 62 items spread across the goals of reducing road trauma and developing a more collaborative community approach to keeping our roads safe.
The majority of action items under the current action plan have been completed or are being progressed. One of these is the reduced 40-kilometre-an-hour speed limits which were implemented in Belconnen, Civic and Tuggeranong in June this year. The reduced speed limits apply to areas where there is a high level of pedestrian movement and where the roads are within 400 metres of retail and commercial development. The 40-kilometre areas are helping to improve safety for cyclists, pedestrians and other users. I have to say that the implementation of the 40-kilometre-an-hour speed area has gone much more smoothly than I thought it would.
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