Australian road accidents have claimed their highest number of victims in 15 years, with the national road toll fuelled by a rising number of pedestrian deaths.
Figures released by the Australian Automobile Association on Thursday showed the national road toll had grown to 1340 deaths during the year to July 31 – an increase of 2.9 per cent.
But the number of pedestrians killed in road accidents during the year jumped by 27.3 per cent, an additional 44 people.
The Pedestrian Council of Australia called for state governments to release more information about the cause of the spike, but also demanded speed limits be cut across capital cities to reduce risks.
Road toll figures showed an additional 38 people were killed on Australian roads during the last 12 months, with significant increases in Tasmania (up 41 per cent), the ACT (14 per cent), and Western Australia (12 per cent).
Only the Northern Territory and South Australia recorded falls in road deaths, at 31 per cent and nine per cent respectively.
The figures represented the worst road toll recorded since 2010 when 1395 people died in road accidents, and showed Australia was failing to meet its goal to halve the road toll by 2030, association managing director Michael Bradley said.
“The National Road Safety Strategy is falling well short of its targets,” he said.
“Governments must look closely at their road trauma data to find out why, then take corrective action to save lives.”
Pedestrians represented 205 of the road deaths during the past year, with the steepest rises in Western Australia (31 deaths) and Queensland (37 deaths).
“We could reduce the pedestrian death toll dramatically if we embraced 30km/h in areas of high pedestrian activity,” Pedestrian Council chief exectutive Harold Scruby told AAP.
“We should make all capital cities 30km/h zones tomorrow, like New Zealand, like Paris, like London.”
Reforms were also needed to share more information about the cause of road accidents to pinpoint issues, he said, including details about dangerous roads and serious injuries sustained in crashes.
“We haven’t got the correct data,” he said.
“We don’t have immediate access to information about why these accidents happen: is it at 6pm, is it an old person, is it in a city, is it out on an open road?”
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