The ‘poor’ safety record of regional roads in WA has come under the spotlight as the domestic travel boom continues, and record numbers of RVs are on the open road.
According to data collected by the Road Safety Commission between 2016 and 2020, 537 people died in reported crashes and 2928 people were seriously injured on regional roads.
That amounts to 108 people killed or seriously injured per 100,000 population, which is almost twice the rate that is generally recorded in the metropolitan area.
Regional Western Australians make up about 20% of the State’s population, yet deaths on regional roads accounted for 60% of the road toll in 2021.
Writing in the Farm Weekly publication, state MP Steve Martin, said regional drivers faced extra risks and had to contend with narrow roads, gravel, long hours at the wheel, trees on roadsides, animals and unlit roads at night.
“Anyone who has been on regional roads recently will know that they are busier than ever, the freight task is greater than ever, and more caravans are on the move,” he said. “Most of the fatal and serious crashes that occur in regional areas involve only one vehicle which has either run off the road and/or collided with an object or rolled over.”
He said that one of the areas of concern was the enormous task of maintaining and upgrading WA’s substantial road network of more than 185,000 kilometres.
“Regional WA is home to 9% of our state’s roads and two-thirds of the network is unsealed,” he said. “Local, State and Federal governments need to keep up with the ever-increasing maintenance and construction effort required on WA’s regional roads … we must ensure the roads are well maintained and safe for use.”
In his Farm Weekly article, Mr Martin said that while safer roads will save lives, some driver behaviour in regional WA still needs to be looked at.
“In regional crashes where someone was killed or seriously injured, seatbelts were not worn by 11% of vehicle occupants,” he said. “Speed was suspected to be a factor in 26% of accidents.”
In metropolitan areas, accidents that resulted in someone being killed or seriously injured, seatbelts were not worn in just 3% of vehicle occupants, and speed was suspected to be a factor in 13p% of the crashes.
“As regional drivers we all need to take responsibility for our behaviour on the roads,” Mr Martin said. “Wear a seatbelt, drive to the conditions, don’t speed, take a break before you get fatigued and leave your mobile phone alone … your life depends on it.”
Lower the speed limit to 100, and that may make a difference. You could keep the 110 on certain roads like the Eyre hwy, and maybe the coast road to up north, but secondary roads should be reduced to 100 or less. When we visit over there, I never went/do over 100km an hour, because most of the roads are rubbish, and not safe at that speed.
Being locked out of WA Forterus road conditions not a problem as WA is now off bucket list
That’s good, more room for us living in the fortress to move about 🙂
It’s not the road conditions but uneducated city folk thinking they have to get where ever first without enjoying the journey. Fatigue is a big player here.