RAA Chief Executive Officer Nick Reade has joined the Australian Automobile Association (AAA) and various motoring clubs nationwide to press for the immediate release of precise crash data, aimed at providing road safety authorities with essential insights for analysing crash causes and implementing targeted campaigns to enhance safety of road users.

“Each life lost on our roads is avoidable, and through investment in infrastructure, vehicles, education and awareness campaigns, we know we can create improvement and hopefully reach the National Road Safety Strategy target of a 50 per cent reduction in lives lost by 2030,” Reade said.

“Right now we are not on track to meet that target, so we need to make changes for the better – as road safety advocates, governments and as individuals.”

He made the call after 117 lives were lost on South Australian roads last year, the highest toll since 2010.

Vulnerable road users – cyclists, pedestrians, motorcyclists – made up 50 of the lives lost, and 33 of the deaths occurred within metropolitan Adelaide, which is more than double the five-year average of 16.

Reade said that despite the initial positive impact of introducing safer roads, speed limits, and vehicles initially contributed to a reduction in severe crashes over the last 20-30 years, fatalities have not declined as significantly as they did before 2010.

“This should not be happening, given what we now know about road safety.” Reade said.

He said that to make better decisions around road safety initiatives, advocates need more timely access to data.

“We often don’t learn the contributing factors of crashes and it can take up to 18 months after the crash to receive detailed crash data for analysis,” Reade said.

“If this data was made public in a more timely fashion, we could better analyse driver behaviour, raise more awareness in the community and more effectively target campaigns – in the hope of improving outcomes and saving lives.”

Yesterday the AAA called for change across the nation.

Managing director Michael Bradley argues the increasing deaths show the National Road Safety Strategy is off track.

The strategy aims to reduce annual deaths by at least 50 per cent by 2030.

Bradley said there was a lack of data to understand the increase in deaths.

He said states and territory governments had valuable data on road quality, crash causes, the effectiveness of law enforcement and more. However, the data is not public.

“Sharing it would reveal valuable insights to guide road investment, law enforcement, and policy changes,” Bradley said.

It would also improve public confidence that road funding was saving lives, he said.

Bradley wants the federal government to compel its peers to share the data.