ATC endorses new safety strategy to reduce the road toll by at least 30 percent by 2020
May 23, 2011
The Australian Transport Council has endorsed a new national road safety strategy to cut the road toll by at least 30 per cent by 2020.
Federal Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Anthony Albanese says the strategy marks a commitment by all governments to significantly improve road safety across the country.
As part of the strategy, all governments have agreed to implement a number of actions, based on a safe system approach, which aims to achieve safe roads, safe speeds, safe vehicles, and safe people.
Transport ministers have agreed to a number of first steps, including using national guidelines to assess speed limits on higher-risk roads, strengthening random breath testing and drug testing enforcement programs and modifying infrastructure funding guidelines to increase safety.
“With road crashes killing approximately 1,400 people each year, and seriously injuring 32,000, we must do more to change the way we think and respond to the road safety challenge,” Albanese says.