The Australian Automobile association today called for much greater action required to try and bring down the road toll for 2007 after a shocking end to 2006.

The AAA Executive Director John Metcalfe stated that despite witnessing a slight decline in road deaths from last year, the figures are still well behind the National Road Safety Strategies goal which is hoping to achieve a 40% reduction rate by 2010.

“In fact, since January 2005, the national road fatality rate has tended upwards,” Mr Metcalfe said.

“For whatever reason, the community appears desensitzed to the face that five people die every day on our roads. Five people dying on our roads every day is a national tragedy.”

The December 2006 national road fatality rate was 7.8 deaths per 100,000 people, which was well behind their target of only 6.9 deaths per 100,000.

To address these figures, the AAA recently submitted a Budget which called upon the Federal Government to:

• Double blackspot funding to $400m over four years.
• Introduce a network road safety program that targets sections of the national network which the Australian Road Assessment program has identified as rating poorly. $400m over four years needs to be invested.
• Introduce a specific regional road safety upgrade element to the roads to recovery program, funded at $100m over four years.

The below graph is a representation of the target goal and the actual fatality rate.