The NSW road toll was 1290 in 1979, down from 1373 in 1978. Last year it was 355. Seat belts, RBT and better car safety has made a difference.
Posted by imapassenger1
The NSW road toll was 1290 in 1979, down from 1373 in 1978. Last year it was 355. Seat belts, RBT and better car safety has made a difference.
Posted by imapassenger1
18 Comments
Considering population growth that’s pretty amazing
That correction is hilarious. Pretty significant mistake.
Fanging sweet burnouts and mad fishies is also down tho so really….. Is it a win?
/s
It was zero in 1788, just saying.
No seriously. This is really good and we should be aiming for zero the way they did in Sweden or whatever.
That correction in the bottom left corner is amazing
That’s really impressive, given that the population has growing substantially since then.
I’ll get down-voted but driverless cars would make a bigger difference.
I found some old newspapers a long time ago at home which showed the road deaths in Australia absolutely plunged after seatbelts were introduced. Single biggest and most quickly effective measure introduced for car safety from what I recall from the article.
This is good..more bikes would be great
I don’t even think we had seat belts in the back of our family car when I was a kid. I remember dad buying a car with seatbelts because the buckle would burn you , trying to put it on, during summer.
Another factor is the roads themselves. We have had 50 years of work on addressing black spots, installing crash barriers, building wider stretches of road. Add to that the safety publicity campaigns around holiday weekends, double demerits, policing of speeding and other dangerous behaviours. Credit where due, these things have also contributed.
In recent times SUV have resulted in an significant increase in pedestrian deaths.
https://theconversation.com/pedestrian-deaths-just-reached-an-18-year-high-bull-bars-are-part-of-the-problem-273362
A national holiday period toll of 135 is absolutely insane. For comparison, there were [106 deaths](https://aueprod01ckanstg.blob.core.windows.net/public-catalogue/14b6ea13-e7e0-4075-9a79-03fd7d9fcceb/Road_deaths_Australia_Monthly_Bulletin_Dec2025.pdf) in the whole of December 2025, with almost twice the population
Also surely adding to the difference: AFAIK 60 used to be the lowest speed limit in use.
Obviously now we have 50 as an almost universal standard for all suburban streets, as well as 40 in busy areas and school zones.
A fair amount of traffic calming has also been put in place.
More freeways and divided roads have made a major difference. Less head-ons.
These are the stats you need to show people who say ‘When I was a kid we didnt’ even wear seatbelts and I didn’t die!’
Yeah you didn’t.. but the dead people can’t speak.
And without looking it up i’m SURE its wayyy down in the last 10-15 years with all these safety cameras everywhere, right?
Seat belts became mandatory in 1972
The biggest reduction in accidents is due to anti-lock brakes, and more recently various driver assist features, especially collision avoidance tech
The road toll began to increase again after COVID. The cause of this increase is not yet known