Federal, state and territory ministers have agreed to a new road safety plan. 

Australia’s new national road safety action plan is aimed at improving regional and remote infrastructure, updating vehicle safety and including more heavy vehicle rest areas.

The plan sets out nine priority areas over the coming years. 

Transport, regional development and local government minister Catherine King says all relevant stakeholders will be engaged to implement the strategy.

“No deaths and serious injuries on Australian roads by 2050 is the Australian Government’s ‘Vision Zero’ commitment, but we all need to play our part,” Ms King says.

“This thorough consultation process has resulted in a National Road Safety Action Plan with achievable and meaningful actions for the Australian and state and territory governments to deliver to 2025 in pursuit of our shared priorities.”

The plan includes measures to provide infrastructure and transport ministers with an annual progress report documenting the year’s road network activities by each government. 

It also includes measures to deliver more robust road safety data, such as the development of a data collection and reporting framework.

“This framework will provide a clearer way to build a national data set for road safety that provides insights into where serious injuries and deaths are occurring and their contributing factors,” the minister’s statement says. 

Additionally, ministers agreed on a research framework to improve coordination, test new concepts and ideas, develop best-practice approaches and consider emerging issues, starting with a review of relevant research. 

Local governments are responsible for the majority (75.3 per cent) of roads, so it will be imperative that higher levels of government help councils improve safety on the national road network.