Driving Change: Transport Professionals Association's call for bold action in Road Safety Strategy Review
November 2025
Australia’s roads are at a crossroads.
Despite a decade-long commitment to Vision Zero by 2050, the reality is sobering: deaths and serious injuries are still climbing. In its recent submission to the mid-term review of the National Road Safety Strategy 2021–30, the Transport Professionals Association (TPA) has delivered a clear message—incremental change is not enough.
“If we only measure harm after people are injured, we will always be reacting too late.”
The state of play
The Strategy has made strides in recognising vulnerable road users—pedestrians, cyclists, and riders—as central to transport planning. Raised platforms, safer crossings, and cycling infrastructure are appearing in more cities. But TPA warns these improvements remain patchy and conceptual.
“The world has changed, the pressures on the system have increased, and our responses have not yet been transformed to match.”
Larger vehicles, high-speed rural roads, and new travel patterns like gig-economy deliveries and e-rideables are reshaping risk. Yet policy responses lag behind.
What needs to change?
TPA’s submission calls for systemic reform, not tweaks. Among its key recommendations:
- Clearer Targets: Move beyond broad national goals to specific, measurable expectations for vulnerable users, regional corridors, and annual reductions. For example, annual targets like “200 fewer deaths per year” would make accountability tangible.
- Open Data: Establish a national crash and serious-injury data standard and release AusRAP results transparently. Predictable, open-data schedules would allow councils and researchers to plan and act effectively.
- Empowered Local Government: Provide councils with map-based risk tools, Safe System training, and authority to implement lower speed limits where evidence supports them.
- Safety Impact Assessments: Require every major project to report projected safety outcomes in real numbers of expected deaths and serious injuries—not just percentages or economic values.
- Economic and Insurance Levers: Introduce incentives such as discounted registration for safer vehicles and subsidies for proven safety interventions.
- Technology Integration: Expand intelligent speed assistance, dynamic speed management, and connected infrastructure alerts to identify risk earlier.
And innovation, TPA argues, isn’t about gadgets:
“Innovation is not shiny gadgets. It’s using better information, smarter tools and new partnerships to identify and treat risk earlier and more fairly.”
Learning from Global Leaders
TPA points to international examples that show bold action works. Wales recently reduced its default urban speed limit to 32 km/h—a move that prioritises lives over convenience. Auckland’s integrated Safe System approach demonstrates how combining infrastructure, enforcement, and education can deliver measurable reductions in harm. The submission also urges Australia to align with European vehicle safety standards, including direct-vision requirements for trucks, which have proven effective in reducing collisions with vulnerable road users.
These lessons underscore a simple truth: countries that embrace systemic, equity-driven reforms see results. Australia must do the same.
It is beyond Policy - it is changing culture
TPA stresses that road safety isn’t just technical; it’s cultural.
“Road safety will not be won from behind computers in our professional, academic and organisational echo chambers. We need people who can relate in clubs, pubs, streets and coffee shops.”
As the Strategy enters its second phase, TPA’s call is urgent: broaden involvement, sharpen accountability, and embrace proactive, equity-driven solutions. Every decision must put people first—because behind every statistic is a life.
Find out more and read the full submission here.
Special Acknowledgement
This submission would not have been possible without the dedication and insight of our members and volunteers. Their willingness to share experiences, highlight challenges, and propose practical solutions ensures that our advocacy is grounded in real-world expertise.
Special thanks to Dr Jason Deller for coordinating and to everyone who contributed survey responses, case studies, and thoughtful feedback—Brett Hughes, Hannah Richardson, Tim Judd, Nigel Coates, Anthony Aisenberg, Wendy Nash, Angela Sun, Scott Benjamin, Brett Williams, David Sulejic—your voices are shaping the future of road safety in Australia.