Fed: Failure to invest in road safety costs lives and $40m a day

AAP General News (Australia)
04-07-2004
Fed: Failure to invest in road safety costs lives and $40m a day

SYDNEY, April 7 AAP - Substantial state and federal funding is needed to prevent road
accidents that cost Australia $40 million a day, NRMA president Ross Turnbull said today.

His comments came as the NRMA, Australasian College of Road Safety (ACRS) and Staysafe
held a road safety forum to coincide with World Health Day, the theme of which is road
safety.

According to a World Health Organisation report released today, traffic accidents kill
1.2 million people each year.

By 2020, road crashes will be the world's third leading cause of death, claiming 2.3
million lives annually.

Figures from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau show 1,634 people were killed on
Australian roads last year.

A further 67,288 people were seriously injured in road accidents between July 1999 and July 2002.

Mr Turnbull said Australia's road toll had dropped 60 per cent in the past 30 years
but injuries had fallen only 20 per cent.

"In Australia, on average, every day there are 5,000 crashes, 550 people will be injured
- some permanently and gravely - and five people will die," he said.

"The social cost is enormous but in cash terms, health terms, it's $40 million each
and every day.

"The governments have got to do something about that."

Mr Turnbull said he was disappointed the NSW government had cut the state's road funding
by $175 million over three years in yesterday's mini-Budget.

"We should be spending more money on better and safer roads, not less," he said.

"Driving a car is the most dangerous thing we do."

Money invested in safer roads was well spent and was offset by health cost savings, he said.

ACRS chairman Professor Mark Stevenson agreed.

"Of course governments have to balance the books, but I think it's a fine line," he said.

"If you cut the budget for road safety, ultimately you're going to see the health budget
(strained).

"Because if you're not preventing (accidents) in the first place we ... see the hospitals
dealing with them, and the costs associated with that for rehabilitation is phenomenal."

Prof Stevenson said safety needed to be a key consideration when planning roads.

"We're not building safety into our road infrastructure - we consider traffic flows,
we consider environmental concerns but we don't consider road traffic injury prevention
in any of our planning," he said.

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