The Strategy
South Australia’s Road Safety Strategy to 2031 (the Strategy) sets out the South Australian Government’s agenda for reducing lives lost and serious injuries on our roads.
The Strategy sets ambitious targets for reducing lives lost and serious injuries between now and 2031 in line with the National Road Safety Strategy 2021-30.
Strategy framework
The strategy comprises:
| Monitoring and Evaluation Framework | |
|---|---|
| Vision | A rolling three-year Action Plan, updated annually |
| Targets | |
| Principles | |
Strategic Focus Areas
| |
- A vision that outlines what we are aspiring to achieve in the future.
- Targets that set out what we want to accomplish by 2031.
- Principles that will guide the South Australian Government’s decision-making on transport related investments, policy setting, programs and initiatives.
- Strategic priorities that are the focus areas for the Strategy, informed by evidence, consultation and alignment with the National Road Safety Strategy. These focus areas are identified to collectively contribute to achieving our ten-year target. The key strategies for each focus area are in no particular priority order.
A rolling three-year action plan, updated annually, will sit alongside the Strategy. It will set out the actions to be taken to give effect to the priorities, as well as responsibilities and timeframes for implementation.
Implementation of the Strategy will be supported by a robust monitoring and evaluation framework designed with input from the Centre for Automotive Safety Research (CASR) to ensure that what we are doing is effective in reducing lives lost and serious injuries. The outcomes of the monitoring and evaluation framework will help inform the review of the Action Plan and future Road Safety Strategies.
The Strategy has been developed using road safety data about lives lost and serious injuries over the five-year period between 2016 and 2020, unless otherwise stated.
We drew on local, interstate and national research to investigate issues the statistics tell us are of significant concern in South Australia. Modelling by the Centre for Automotive Safety Research about what works to reduce lives lost and serious injuries also informed the Strategy.
Developing the Strategy
Development of the Strategy has been guided by extensive consultation with stakeholders and
the community and we listened to them. This includes:
| When | Engagement |
|---|---|
| Consultation to inform the development of the strategy | |
| August 2020 | A series of 10 webinars with road safety stakeholders across four contexts: metropolitan Adelaide and the CBD; regional roads; regional centres; and rural towns and remote communities which identified priority issues, ambitions and principles. |
| October - November 2020 | A state-wide survey on yourSAy, the South Australian Government’s community engagement platform, with over 1340 survey responses received. 36 written submissions were also received. |
| October 2020 - February 2021 | Market research to better understand road user behaviour, motivators and barriers in relation to fatigue and older road users, plus a focus session with stakeholders to further explore the issues and possible solutions. These topics were chosen based on road safety statistics and the need for further investigation (For example, extensive work has been undertaken either in South Australia or nationally on some key issues such as vehicles as a workplace, motorcyclists and driver distraction). |
| January - February 2021 | A series of subject based workshops, including road user behaviour, infrastructure and local government. |
| February 2021 | Three regional community workshops in areas associated with high levels of road trauma: Yorke Peninsula, Coorong and Loxton Waikerie Council areas at Yorketown, Tintinara and Loxton respectively. |
| Consultation on the draft strategy | |
| July - September 2021 | Community consultation on yourSAy including a survey that received 352 detailed responses. Sixty-one written submissions were received. |
| Release of the Strategy | |
December 2021 | |
Consultation to inform the development of the Strategy
The key themes that emerged from the consultation and informed development of the Strategy were:
- Driver education to change behaviour, such as the need to improve driver training and assessment, road user education and broader public messaging campaigns regarding road rules.
- Infrastructure improvements for metropolitan Adelaide, such as infrastructure for active travel and better major intersection design to improve traffic flow and reduce the risk of crashes.
- Greater investment in road infrastructure, such as better signage and more dual carriageways, overtaking lanes, sealed roads, and rest stops on regional and remote roads.
- Higher standards of road maintenance including resurfacing stretches of road rather than patch fixes, maintenance of road shoulders and the width of the roads being suitable for all vehicles using it.
- Active and/or alternative transport, such as safer separated cycling and pedestrian options, and the role of passenger transport for safe and active travel.
- Speed, including speed limits, speeding and human impacts of speed.
- Safe vehicles and fleet, including the role of safety technologies, newer vehicles and autonomous vehicles in improving road safety outcomes.
- Heavy vehicles and freight, including educating all road users on the safe interaction with heavy vehicles, and the need for fit-for-purpose road infrastructure to accommodate heavy vehicles (such as overtaking lanes).
- Road user behaviour, with a focus on drink and drug driving, distraction (particularly around the use of mobile phones), fatigue, seatbelts and speeding.
- Road user compliance and enforcement, including a greater police presence in regional and remote areas.
- Removal of and/or higher standards of treatment for roadside vegetation, to address concerns about visibility, the dangers of animals being too close to the road, and survivability of a crash where objects, such as trees are too close to the roadside.
Consultation on the draft Strategy
The feedback received from stakeholders and the community resulted in a number of amendments to the Strategy including changes to information in the Strategy on motorcycles and child restraints, and changes to, or the addition of, key strategies for Aboriginal road users, vehicles, older road users, younger road users, roads and workplaces.
65% of online survey respondents agreed that the strategies and focus areas would support achieving our ten year targets and improve road safety on South Australian roads.