source : the age
Last year’s Queensland road toll of 301 was the highest since 2009, and already this year 17 people have died in traffic accidents – twice as many as the same time last year.
Of particular concern to police is a surge in deaths among people who have less protection in the event of an accident, such as motorcycle riders, cyclists, pedestrians, and e-scooter riders.
But Queensland Transport suspects those vulnerable road users are involved in more non-fatal crashes than police know about, and has sought data from ambulance and hospital databases to determine the true scale of the problem.
As part of a road safety campaign, the Queensland Police Service last year erected hundreds of life-sized cut-outs of adults and children in front of City Hall.Credit: AAPIMAGE
Since 2015, police have only been required to attend accidents where there has been a death or injury, there is a threat to public safety, if a driver or rider appears to be impaired or fails to provide their details to others involved.
“Bicycle and motorcycle crash injuries are more likely to not be reported when there is no other vehicle involved,” a department spokeswoman told this masthead.
“There are often no insurance options in these instances and therefore no motivation to get the police involved.”
The department, police and other agencies, through the state’s Road Safety Data Bureau, are now trying to ascertain the number of non-fatal accidents occurring in Queensland and any similarities that might warrant a targeted crackdown.
The spokeswoman said that by being able to review the nature and severity of those crashes, as well as the type of people, infrastructure and modes of transport involved, the bureau hoped to “inform whole-of-government decision-making and approaches to road safety policy and road injury prevention in Queensland”.
The existing data already points to the need for authorities to focus more on people who aren’t driving cars, and areas other than regional Queensland.
Acting Chief Superintendent Garrath Channells, from Road Policing and Regional Support Command, said 79 motorcycle riders died last year (up from 77 in 2023), along with eight pedestrians (up from four in 2023) and eight people using various personal mobility devices (up from two in 2023).
Channells said “enforcement alone won’t solve this”.
“Police are out there doing everything they can on the roads to try and bring this figure down and ensure people can return home to loved ones or their families,” he said on Monday.
“To then observe the deadliest start to the year since 2020 is truly harrowing.”
While the state and federal governments recently struck a multi-billion-dollar deal for safety improvements on the Bruce Highway, the biggest increase in road fatalities by location last year was in the Brisbane police region (up 82.6 per cent) and metropolitan Transport and Main Roads region (up 77 per cent).
Treasurer David Janetzki will hand down the budget update on Thursday, ahead of the LNP’s first budget in June.
The federal election is also due within months.
