Our vision is that the whole South Australian community work together to address the deaths and serious injuries caused by everyday use of the roads, no matter the people or circumstances involved. The targets for South Australia will meet the challenge of the draft national road safety strategy to reduce serious casualty trauma by at least 30% during the decade. This reduction represents the minimum improvement we can accept while recognising that we will strive to do better throughout the life of the strategy. On average between 2008 and 2010, there were 112 fatalities and 1126 serious injuries per year on South Australian roads. A 30% reduction target as set out in the draft national road safety strategy would provide a new target for South Australia of less than 80 fatalities, and less than 800 serious injuries by 2020. The analysis undertaken for the draft national strategy suggests that it will take significant effort to achieve a 30% reduction in fatalities and serious injuries. Different mixes of intervention are possible, but road infrastructure, vehicle safety and speed management are the areas which have the greatest potential to significantly influence casualty reductions. Programs aimed at increasing driver behaviour compliance will also produce further improvements. Three to four year action plans will be developed and published throughout the life of the strategy to set out the key actions that will be undertaken towards achieving the targets. One of the first actions will be to undertake a more precise analysis of what is required to achieve the road safety target that South Australia adopts. Progress towards meeting the targets relating to deaths and serious injuries will be reported on a quarterly basis. A comprehensive monitoring framework will be developed that gives greater emphasis to the total burden of injury — for example, minor injuries account for approximately half of the annual Compulsory Third Party claim costs. The framework will also include a second level of indicators that can be used to more directly analyse changes in critical aspects of the safety of the road transport system. Key indicators differentiated by road and crash type, travel speed, vehicle safety technology, as well as behavioural measures such as drink driving and restraint wearing, will allow us to regularly assess the progress of our actions in these different areas. Reporting on the delivery of key programs will also be undertaken. (Author/publisher)
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