Last year the national road toll rose by over eight per cent with 1,266 people tragically losing their lives on our roads. With National Road Safety Week commencing on May 5, this was a timely opportunity for transport professionals to hear directly from Peter Frazer OAM, President and founder of Safer Australian Highways and Roads.
In his address, Peter Frazer talked about the importance of industry and society wide action to reduce the road toll and accidents across the network. He called for increased investment in speed camera enforcement to drive behaviour change to ensure we all can go home to our loved ones every day.
The CEO of Austroads, Geoff Allan, spoke about working closely with state and territory governments to collect government road standard rating data to begin to be published in 2025. The collective goal is to achieve higher road ratings across Australia’s road network. With every higher star rating the level of safety on the road increases. Austroads is also working with jurisdictions to standardise training across the traffic management sector to make it simpler, better and safe for road workers.
Rob McInerney brought an international view to the panel discussion as CEO of iRAP with a focus on mobilising partner networks to share in the life-saving success of 3-star or better safer roads for all road users.
Industry has more power than it realises to improve safety, Rob argued. He spoke to three items:
- If you are in government – know the before the after star rating of every road you build for all users including pedestrians and cyclists. Then build it in to specifications for road projects.
- If you are a contractor or consultant – what road safety rating are you designing for and be conscious about leaving a safe legacy.
- And if you are a constructor – have at your finger tips the star ratings and make sure you are happy to be delivering that level of safety. And then if you increase the road rating, celebrate it and talk about the number of lives you and your teams are going to save.
Rob also spoke about successes that need to be quantified and shared, such as the 5 star rating for pedestrians and cyclists on the Tonkin Highway. Last week, a peer reviewed paper was published that shows iRAP partners through road safety improvements have collectively saved 700,000 deaths and serious injuries by the end of this year. This grows at 432 people each day, that are getting home safely.
In the panel discussion, Graeme Silvester of CPB Contractors argued that road safety is a moral obligation. He provided an industry perspective on workzone road safety having played a key role in the development of the Road Worker Safety Industry Guideline, which was formally released at the Transforming Transport Summit.