Technology for good is being ignored.

Vehicle safety technologies continue to improve, yet each year thousands of Australians are killed or seriously injured in road crashes.

The problem:

Australia’s vehicle fleet is not as safe as it should be, which is costing lives. Australia has too many older vehicles on its roads. We do not have widespread deployment of the latest vehicle safety technologies. And we are too slow to update and implement new vehicle safety standards.

The Solution:

• Australia actively participates in developing United Nations vehicle standards and accelerates implementation of these standards in Australia.

• Introduce targets and initiatives to reduce the average age of our vehicle fleet – so that unsafe older vehicles are replaced.

• Abolish costly tariffs and taxes that were originally designed to protect our vehicle manufacturing sector and which continue to make newer, safer cars more expensive than they should be.

• Support non-regulatory measures that encourage the latest safety technologies in new vehicles on the Australian market, including via ANCAP, government fleet buying policies and voluntary undertakings by the industry.

• Any advertising or point of sale statements on vehicle safety must reference the independent ANCAP safety rating.

Reviving Road Safety a paper developed by the AAA aims to identify the road safety interventions that can start to shape a future role for the Australian Government.