At present, road accident data is colllected and stored separately by each state and territory, and they’re not sharing it with each other or with the public.
The data needed to make sense of Australia’s worsening road toll is being collected by state governments, but it’s not released. This data relates to the quality of Australian roads, the causes of crashes, and the effectiveness of the various measures to prevent crashes.
AAA Managing Director Michael Bradley said: “The Australian Government is right to support improved funding integrity, transparency, and accountability, but this will require an evidence-based approach to transport safety and project funding that currently does not exist.
… “Without good data, Australia has no credible plan to understand its current road trauma problems or prevent their continuation.”
… The AAA and its campaign partners want the Commonwealth to ensure that the agreement includes data-sharing obligations for the states and territories. Similar requirements are in place for national health, education, and housing funding agreements.
The causes of accidents is extremely important as not knowing the causes, one can’t identify suitable measures to address the problem. Trying to solve a problem without knowing the causes is stabbing in the dark.
I’d be guessing that the real causes vs the convenient revenue generating stories are conflicting, and the motoring associations being government apologists over the last few decades for the simplistic revenue generating stories are as culpible as those who blindly subscribe to their stories … but who knows
If you mean the real causes of not sharing data, I’m inclined to agree.
Each state and territory collects and stores its own set of road statistics, and it’s a fair bet that the particular set of stats collected is different for each, and stored and accessed differently.
The real reasons they aren’t sharing might include that the data they’ve been collecting is inadequate to the purpose (and they don’t want to admit that) and/or that it’d take time, effort, and money to massage into a format suitable for sharing, which would itself first have to be agreed by all states/territories, but they can’t or don’t want to spare resources to either task.
The feds don’t seem to have put much pressure on the states to get their road stats into shape and shared, in line with the
Notice that it’s a “commitment [made in/before 2021] to deliver significant reductions in road trauma by 2030”. It’s 2024 now, and there’s been no sign of work towards that target.
The pandemic years wouldn’t have helped make progress on this, but it isn’t just going to happen all of itself because both levels of government have “committed” to it.
One can only create so many protective devices on vehicles, and some humans will always be clever enough to make passive protections inadequate. How much data can treat that, although I am all for data sharing as well as meaningful reports from same.
Delays (disinterest?) may be so simple as they know the appalling standards of some roads might (!) be called out, including maintenance as well as standards of design along with other issues such as without ability to drive (whether lack of interest, inability to pass licensing tests, too many demerits, no vehicle, etc) how does one get around? We do not have trains, trams, buses, taxis, or ride share everywhere regardless of affordability of one vs others. Paying for maintenance and building better roads and intersections? Funding requires more tax money or fees - always ‘popular topics’ among voters.
Are governments just wanting to avoid the hard discussions as long as they can and is oft the case they are more comfortable kicking the can down the road rather than solving (or trying to solve) problems beyond lip service.
Similar to a recent point of political difference it’s important to do the numbers. Guided by the data the best decision is always arrived at. How extensive and reliable is that data? Not to be under-estimated? It’s close enough to report 60% of the Aussie population live in NSW and Vic. A further 20% live in QLD. /note some cynicism
Obscurity assists avoidance of two inconvenient truths.
To be human is to be imperfect when driving.
Roads Project funding has conflicted objectives.
The AAA showed how it was in this 2016 assessment. Still relevant given how the long lead times fir change. Note human factors not included in the assessment.
So maybe the the data would show that the ubiquitous speed cameras and police presence combined with extravagant penalties, was not actually contributing to reducing the road toll, but, because of extra attention required, in fact having the opposite effect.
With a lot of safety features like ABS and airbags in cars now, motor vehicle collisions are more ‘survivable’ than in the past. But I’ve noticed there’s never been any data on how many who do survive these tragic collisions live with life long injuries. And sometimes those injuries are so bad that it can render people with such severe disablement they require ongoing round-the-clock care.
I call them collisions because ‘accident’ implies that nobody was at fault. Something is always the cause, whether it’s the driver, another driver, a road in disrepair, an animal or a badly designed road.
It’s always been something I’ve wondered about. Maybe if that data was known, more people would be more careful.
