Australia’s latest road fatality report may surprise you

Savvy’s latest road toll report, Australia’s Road Toll Report 2023 – Are We Getting Better?, looks at the official statistics of road fatalities in Australia, and the results are somewhat surprising. Although younger, less experienced drivers often have a bad rep when it comes to crashes, it turns out that statistically, male drivers between the age of 40 to 64 years of age are more likely to die in a car crash on Australia’s roads.

And in terms of states, you are four times more likely to die in a road incident in the NT than in the rest of the country. However, given the 130km/h speed limits on some of the NT’s roads, the wildlife and long stretches of nothing to break up the boredom, this one is somewhat less surprising.

Our stats have improved over the decades, though. In the 20 years between 1965 and 1985, it was pretty bad, with an average annual road death toll of 3,378. Some of you may even remember the lax seatbelt attitude over this period. Thanks to better driver education, a crack-down on drink-driving and seatbelt-wearing, and improved vehicle technology, this average decreased by quite a large amount to 1,379 on average per year in the two decades between 2001 and 2021.

Although this improvement is fantastic, anyone who has been involved in an accident or lost a family member or friend will wholeheartedly agree that anything over zero is too many.

So what can we do better?

Well, we can’t control what others do on the road, but we can look to ourselves and those around us to be safer. So with the goal of reducing these figures even further, let’s brush up on our RV driving and towing skills.

Check out rvSafe (home of all things RV road safety), the CMCA‘s great initiative to improve safety on our roads. Here you’ll find the official rvSafe handbook, which is available to download for free.

The rvSafe handbook aims to support and provide resource materials for improving RV safety on our roads. The handbook focuses on nine core areas:

• Towing
• Vehicle weights and weight distribution
• Speed
• Overtaking safely
• UHF radio communication
• Rest
• Roadside services
• Consumer behaviour
• Licensing

Please, take the time to check it out because as RV drivers and towers, we could all do a little bitter and do our part to be safer on the roads and tracks.

So regardless of your age, gender or what and where you are driving, you should never drink and drive or drive tired. Make use of rest stops to ensure you are alert. It could end up saving your life or that of your loved ones.