road safetyImproving standards

Understanding the history of our road safety initiatives will help us on our journey towards our target of zero serious injuries and deaths on Tasmanian roads.

Personal mobility through motorised transport has a relatively short history, with the horse and cart giving way to the motor car barely 130 years ago. Shortly after the introduction of motor cars, the first road fatality was recorded in Great Britain in 1896 when British mother Bridget Driscoll was struck by Arthur James Edsall, while he was giving joy rides through neighbourhood parklands. From this point on, as motorised traffic volumes increased, so too did the number of deaths and serious injuries. Australia quickly followed in England’s tracks with a significant rise in motor vehicles, and by 1925, when road fatality records began, around 700 people died on Australian roads.

As serious casualties continued to rise, there was a shift in focus from infrastructure provision to traffic management, including legislation and regulation, and education about road rules. Safe driving quickly became the principal tool within governments’ crash prevention strategies, including educating the public on safe behaviours and increasing enforcement to deter risky driving behaviours.

Despite these efforts, road trauma continued to rise along with the rapid increase in car ownership, and by 1970, Australia’s road toll had tragically reached its peak of 3800 fatalities. In response, governments began to systematically collect and analyse data to identify and tackle road safety issues and the most effective countermeasures for reducing serious casualties, which would underpin road safety strategies worldwide.

Over the decades, a lot of work has been done to improve roads, enhance vehicle safety, implement safer speeds and improve driver behaviour through education, training and compliance enforcement. Many of these measures we take for granted today, including compulsory seat belts, a blood alcohol limit, random breath testing, speed cameras and, more recently, drug testing. Vehicle technologies such as airbags, traction control and ABS braking have also contributed significantly. And of course, we are designing and building much safer roads that can better compensate for the mistakes even good drivers make from time to time.

All these measures have greatly improved the safety of our road network and undoubtedly saved countless lives and prevented many people from being seriously hurt. Still, year after year, we continue to see common trends in specific demographics and certain driver behaviours. Young drivers and males continue to be significantly over-represented in road trauma, as are motorcyclists. Most of our road trauma occurs in higher speed zones, and lane departure crashes (head-on and run-off-road crashes) are still the predominant crash type.

High-risk behaviours such as drink driving and speeding continue to put people at risk, but as society moves forward, there are also new challenges, such as mobile phone distraction.

Many challenges still lie ahead in our journey towards our target of zero serious injuries and deaths on Tasmanian roads, but by implementing evidencebased initiatives and trialling new technologies, we can continue to make reductions.