SAFER ROADS: SAVE LIVES AND REDUCE INJURY ON HIGH-SPEED LOCAL ROADS
How the West reaches its Best:
- Provide $276 million over four years to fund the State’s contribution to applying proven road safety countermeasures on 439 Local Government roads, totalling 8,208km
Reducing fatalities and serious injuries on Local Government-managed roads is essential to meeting the State Government’s target of a 50-70% reduction in road trauma by 2030.
Between 2017 and 2021, more than 500 people lost their lives and over 2,900 were seriously injured on regional roads in WA. Alarmingly, half of these crashes happened on Local Government roads.
In 2022, the fatality rate in regional WA was 18.7 per 100,000 people, compared to just 2.84 per 100,000 in the Perth metropolitan area.
Over 70% of fatal and serious injury crashes in regional WA are due to run-off-road or head-on collisions. Improving safety on these roads is challenging because of their extensive and remote nature.
The $855.7 million Regional Road Safety Program is delivering significant improvements in road safety on National and State Highways. Analysis across 163 Regional Road Safety Program projects over the last two years shows positive outcomes.
Compared to the previous five years a 50% reduction in fatalities and 35% reduction in serious injuries has been observed.
Significant benefits can be achieved by extending this approach to high-speed regional local roads.
A Business Case led by the RAC in partnership with WALGA and Main Roads WA, with support from The Australian Road Research Board (ARRB), proposes a program to reduce the disproportionately high rate of fatal and serious injury crashes on high-speed Local Government-managed roads in regional and peri-urban areas. This Business Case prioritises 439 high-speed Local Government roads covering 8,208 kilometres – approximately one-third of WA’s sealed rural road network – and provides a process for selecting appropriate, proven, cost-effective countermeasures, a safety assessment and a return-on-investment analysis.
To support the implementation of this business case, co-funding from the Australian Government and State Government is required to a total $552 million.
To evaluate the program’s effectiveness, assessments were conducted that included before-and-after comparisons of star safety ratings and estimates of Killed and Seriously Injured (KSI) reductions. The analysis shows significant road safety benefits:
- A reduction of 138 fatalities and 489 serious injuries over the 30-year lifespan of the countermeasures.
- An average Star Rating Score improvement from 38.4 to 29.1 after implementing the countermeasures.
- A 23.6% improvement in the Star Rating Score, indicating a relative risk safety improvement.
The program aligns with both National and State road safety goals, particularly in WA’s Road Safety Framework, focusing on “building safer roads and road systems” and emphasising the importance of regional roads in Driving Change, Road Safety Strategy for WA 2020 – 2030.
SAFER CHILDREN’S CROSSINGS
How the West reaches its Best:
- Prioritise converting children’s crossings on 30 identified multi-lane, high-speed, high volume roads to signalled pedestrian crossings to make it safer for Traffic Wardens and students
Enabling children to safely walk and ride to local schools reduces car trips, congestion and parking pressure, as well as improving health outcomes through increased physical activity.
Manned children’s crossings are designed to provide a safe location for children to cross roads on their way to school. However, high traffic speed and volumes can create unsafe conditions for both children and Traffic Wardens.
The State Government recently committed $10 million to expand the 40km/h speed limit to all warden-controlled school crossings that fall outside of existing designated school zones. This decision is an important step toward making it safer for Traffic Wardens and children using the crossing during before and after school hours.
However, there is scope to further enhance the safety of children’s crossings on high-speed and high-volume roads by investing in infrastructure to convert children’s crossings on high-volume, high-speed roads to signalled pedestrian crossings. WALGA has identified 30 priority crossings that should be the immediate focus. Conversion of these crossings is estimated to cost $15 million.
Conversion to signalled crossings will help to address the chronic shortage of Traffic Wardens. This issue is reflected in WA Police data and is expected to become an even greater challenge going forward given the average age of a Traffic Warden is 76. The shortage means that it is not possible to staff all crossings. High traffic and student volume crossings receive priority, while others remain unmanned. The absence of Traffic Wardens on short notice can also result in crossings being uncontrolled, increasing the risk to children.
Converting to signalled crossings will allow the redeployment of Traffic Wardens to less dangerous or unmanned crossings and reduce the number of Traffic Wardens required to manage high-speed, high-volume traffic.
