For more information or copies of AusRAP reports contact: Australian Road Assessment Program (AusRAP) C/O Australian Automobile Association (AAA) 103 Northbourne Avenue, Canberra ACT 2601 Email [email protected] WEb www.ausrap.org or www.aaa.asn.au PhonE +61 2 6247 7311 Alternatively, contact the Automobile Club in your state or territory. Material in this publication may be reproduced or quoted provided AAA is acknowledged. © Australian Road Assessment Program (AusRAP) 2011 how Safe are our Roads? Rating Australia’s National Network for Risk benchmarking the performance of australia’s roads in the Decade of action 2 011 an average of four people are killed on Road crashes cost our community $74 million australia’s roads each day every day Engineering measures to improve safety don’t Everyday drivers making everyday mistakes have to be high cost ones and best of all - they should not die or be seriously injured as a last decades consequence of an unsafe road a road system where we have five star drivers ausRaP aspires to help australia become a in five star cars on five star roads should nation free of high risk roads. involve no deaths The roads assessed in this report represent just over 20,000 kms of australia’s highways have three per cent of australia’s road length, but been rated for risk recorded over 15 per cent of all fatalities 26 per cent of the roads assessed have shown Just nine per cent of roads assessed qualify as little or no improvement and are persistently a most improved road high risk Contents Why Road Safety is Important ................................... 2 Queensland ......................................................... 20 About AusRAP ............................................................ 3 South Australia ................................................... 24 Simple Measures Save Lives ..................................... 4 Western Australia ............................................... 28 Rating Australia’s Network for Risk .......................... 5 Tasmania ............................................................. 32 How Safe are our Roads? Results ............................. 7 Northern Territory .............................................. 36 Tracking the Safety Performance of Australian Capital Territory ................................ 40 Australia ............................................................. 10 Appendix – Complete Results .................................. 42 New South Wales ................................................ 12 Victoria ................................................................ 16 Exclusion of liability The material in this report is not intended to be relied upon as advice, and in particular the Authors and Publishers accept no responsibility for loss or injury suffered by any person as a consequence, direct or indirect, of anything contained in this report. 2 Why Road Safety is important many road crashes involve sudden loss, untold suffering Making this happen requires the commitment of politicians, and financial hardship, and they change the lives of based on support from the public, funding from treasury, people forever. Safe personal travel should be a key road authority action, and the design and construction skills of road engineers. feature of modern society but unless road tragedy personally touches us or our loved ones, we sometimes The Australian Road Assessment Program (AusRAP) is don’t reflect on how big a problem it is. here to help all of these stakeholders, and aspires to help Australia become a nation free of high risk roads. Across Australia around 1,400 people are killed each year and more than 32,500 are hospitalised. This averages four deaths and nearly 90 serious injuries on Australian roads and costs our community $74 million each and every day. Most crashes occur when ordinary people make everyday human mistakes. It has been estimated that around 1 in 500 driving decisions can be wrong, involving a mistake, an error of judgement, a missed signal or the like. Sober, drug-free, responsible drivers obeying the speed limit and wearing seatbelts frequently die on our roads. Safe roads minimise the chances of these crashes happening, and if they do occur, they minimise the severity of the crash. Engineering measures to improve safety don’t have to be high cost and best of all, they last decades! We need to create a genuinely safe road system, in which improving the safety of drivers, vehicles and roads is of mutual importance. A road system where we have five star drivers, in five star cars on five star roads should involve no deaths. It is estimated that of all road fatalities which can be avoided through improved safety, half of these would be achieved through road upgrades 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 infrastructure, particularly those road features which are designed to reduce run-off-road, intersection and head- on crashes. How Safe Are Our Roads? Rating Australia’s National Network for Risk – 2011 3 about ausRaP ausRaP is a program run by the australian automobile features prevent crashes from occurring and reduce the association and State and Territory motoring clubs, severity of those crashes which do occur. Each road is dedicated to saving lives through advocating for safer then assigned a Star Rating, which tells us how safe the road itself is. For more information on Star Ratings visit road infrastructure. www.ausrap.org AusRAP’s objectives are to: • reduce deaths and injuries on Australia’s roads by ausRaP – systematically assessing risk and identifying safety contributing to the shortcomings that can be addressed with practical road-improvement measures; and Decade of action • put risk assessment at the heart of strategic decisions The Global Plan for the Decade on road improvements, crash protection and standards of Action for Road Safety 2011- of road management. 2020 encourages all countries to set a target of ‘Eliminating High AusRAP works in partnership with government and non- Risk Roads by 2020’. AusRAP aspires to help Australia government organisations to: become a nation free of high risk roads. • inspect national and state highways and develop Star This vision will be achieved through working with Ratings and Safer Roads Investment Plans; governments and government agencies, motoring Club • track road safety performance through risk maps so Members and the wider community, peak national and that funding agencies can assess the benefits of their state road user groups and the research community to investments; and highlight road safety infrastructure issues and potential • explain the benefits of safer road infrastructure to the solutions. community by describing why some roads are safer than others. AusRAP will extend road assessments and monitor the implementation of road improvements across Australia’s AusRAP uses two complementary methods—or protocols— National Highway Network (about 22,000kms) and many for assessing the safety of roads: Star Ratings and Risk State and Territory highways during the Decade of Action Mapping. for Road Safety. Risk Mapping is a measure of the real-life performance of AusRAP’s membership and close ties to iRAP, the a road network because it is based on crashes which have International Road Assessment Program, opens the actually occurred. These crashes are a result of factors door to a world of best practice and innovative safety related to driver behaviour, the vehicle and the safety of improvements internationally. AusRAP is a valued the road infrastructure (see page 5 for more detail). member of the iRAP Board and the Global Technical Comparing two risk maps over time is known as Committee. As a founding iRAP program, AusRAP is a Performance Tracking, which is the focus of this report. leader in the iRAP Asia Pacific Region and through our relationship with iRAP and FIA, we will continue to assist Star Ratings measure the inherent safety of a road’s emerging RAP programs in our region. infrastructure – that is, the degree to which built in safety 4 Simple measures Save lives The safety of road infrastructure depends on many through the use of medians and safety barriers, rather factors including the width of the road, whether there than relying on a splash of white paint. are curves and crests, line marking, the presence and The safety features of a road are not always obvious to type of any intersections, roadside hazards, overtaking motorists but they do make a huge difference as explained provision and whether head-on collisions are avoided below. Undivided roads with only one lane in each direction make it riskier to overtake. Freeways with wide medians and safety barriers can safely handle much higher traffic volumes with virtually no chance of a head-on crash. Roadside killers such as trees, poles and steep embankments can turn what would be a minor crash into a severe one. If these hazards can’t be removed, installing safety barriers can dramatically lower the risk. If a driver moves out of their lane, sealing shoulders offers extra space to recover. Unsealed or narrow shoulders are unforgiving of simple mistakes, and can lead to loss of control, running off the road, or head-on into traffic. Roads with lots of intersections are less safe because of an increased risk of crashes with side-road traffic. Low risk intersections have separate turning lanes and are clearly visible day and night. The