Queensland Road Safety Roundtable 2023

Summary, key themes and next steps

Date: Tuesday 24 January 2023

Place: Transport and Main Roads Conference Centre, 61 Mary Street, Brisbane

Summary

The safety of Queenslander's lives is a key priority of the Queensland Government.

To address the record number of lives lost on the road in 2022, The Honourable Mark Bailey MP, Minister for Transport and Main Roads held a road safety roundtable to bring government representatives, academics, road operators and user advocacy groups together to combat road trauma through new ideas.

Over 40 people attended the roundtable and shared their ideas and gave input on improving road safety in Queensland.

The roundtable opened with an outline of some of the concerning trends seen related to fatal and serious injury crashes, and the range of road safety policy initiatives already being delivered in Queensland. Government representatives, including from the Queensland Police Service, then discussed the challenges of road safety from the perspective of their roles.

After this discussion, stakeholder groups were given an opportunity to present their key issues and ideas regarding road safety. After each group presented, the topic was further discussed amongst the group.

We sincerely thank everyone who attended and shared their stories and experiences, which may drive new ideas to tackle this urgent social issue.

Key themes

The issues and ideas that were discussed by stakeholders on the day have been grouped under 5 key themes: education, infrastructure, road user behaviour, enforcement and other.

Note, the points listed below reflect the discussion at the roundtable and not necessarily the views of the Queensland Government or all participants attending on the day. Further, these discussion points will inform future development of initiatives but it should not be assumed that they will all be adopted.

Education

• Making public education inclusive and targeted to all road user groups
• Facilitating better education on available technology, such as in-car technology
• Focusing on whole-of-life learning, including investigating making it mandatory in schools, and supporting driving supervisors
• Leveraging technology to better educate drivers, such as using gamification to reach young people
• Leveraging mentoring programs, influencers and peer-to-peer education to reach drivers
• Working with young people on new ways to communicate about road safety
• Equipping drivers with more driving training and first aid skills.

Infrastructure

• Reducing speed limits holistically across network
• Removing open level crossings from the network
• Investigating the viability of rural flood warning signs that can be remotely activated
• Increasing infrastructure spending and providing new treatments for vulnerable road users'
• Increasing the number of rest areas on the road network, particularly those with toilets
• Taking a 'no harm requirement' approach for footpath closures, including having better signage and retaining accessibility of the path
• Investigating the safety of rural roads, including infrastructure and speed limits of no more than 80k/m on rural roads with an AUSRAP star rating of 3 or less.

Road user behaviour

• Rewarding drivers for good driving behaviour
• Investigating diversion programs for high-risk traffic offences and/or repeat offenders
• Understanding the impacts of stress and mental health on driving behaviours
• Cultivating new social driving norms, for example making dangerous behaviours (like speeding) socially unacceptable and targeting selfish driving behaviours.

Enforcement

• Increasing the visibility of policing efforts to curb unsafe driving behaviour
• Leveraging emerging technology, including the use of automated enforcement
• Reviewing the effectiveness of random drug testing and random breath testing programs
• Managing the on-road risks of large passenger vehicles (such as SUVs) that are entering the market
• Implementing multi-disciplinary crash investigations to better understand the contributing factors.

Other

• Reviewing current penalties
• Retesting licences after 5 years
• Increasing access to and safety of public transport
• Creating and implementing evidence-based policy
• Encouraging the collection and sharing of road data across government departments, jurisdictions and with the public
• Involving road user groups in decision-making, policy, program and infrastructure design
• Increasing the safety of vehicles on the network, such as reducing the lifespan of a vehicle that can be driven on the road
• Investigating how to enhance workplace investigations into incidents involving employees driving a vehicle for work.

Next steps in addressing road safety

As outlined in the Queensland Road Safety Strategy 2022-31, road safety is a preventable public health issue that needs urgent attention.

The ideas put forward during the roundtable have been further investigated to determine their potential road safety benefit and viability for implementation. This includes how they align with or complement existing commitments under the strategy and the Queensland Road Safety Action Plan 2022-2024.

Following the roundtable, education, driver behaviour, enforcement and infrastructure will all form part of the plan to make Queensland roads safer.

Through our Targeted Road Safety program, we will ensure our infrastructure is keeping Queenslanders safe by investing:

• $143 million to address key safety concerns on our road network as part of the High Risk Roads initiative
• $47.8 million for the Safer Road Sooner initiative
• $8.8 million towards Targeted Safety initiatives
• $8.5 million to protect vulnerable road users
• $7.3 million towards our School Transport Infrastructure Program which provides funding to improve safety and operation of road networks near schools
• $663,000 to Mass Action Initiative which implement specific treatments to target specific safety issues.

Working with the community, we will also be:

• implementing the Ride to Zero motorcycle safety program, a community-led approach to improving rider outcomes
• running our successful Co-Lab youth road safety challenge in May during National Road Safety Week, bringing young Queenslanders together to create a real road safety campaign targeted to young drivers
• boosting the Community Road Safety Grants fund for Road Safety Educators, Learner Driver Mentor Programs and motorcycle rider courses
• removing fees for the popular PrepL supervisor course, an online learning program recommended for people who will supervise learner drivers
• evaluating the PrepL online learner licence assessment program to ensure it is fit for purpose and targeted to ensure road interactions that young drivers are confronted with are appropriately incorporated
• investigating the introduction of an immediate licence suspension for the high range speeding offence
• ensuring all drivers are up to date on road rules by developing and trialling engaging content on road rule changes and emerging road safety issues and incorporating this into the online licence renewal
• continuing the implementation of our Personal Mobility Device Action Plan
• trialling new technology to identify and discourage dangerous driver behaviour, firstly looking at mobile phone use and tailgating
• continuing our road safety education campaigns and running them in-conjunction with high-visibility enforcement campaigns run by Queensland Police Service.