Australian road deaths at lowest level in four years: data

0 Comment(s)Print E-mail Xinhua, January 17, 2019
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CANBERRA, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The death toll on Australia's roads has fallen to its lowest level in four years.

Figures from the government's Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics on Thursday revealed that 1,146 people were killed on the nation's roads in 2018, down 6.4 percent from the 1,224 in 2017.

The figure marks the lowest road death toll since 2014, the department said.

Despite the improvement, Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, who also serves as the Minister for Infrastructure, said that the government would commit to reducing the number even further.

"While we have seen some improvement on the number of road deaths in 2018, we can do even better by ensuring basic safety steps are followed," he told the Guardian Australia on Thursday.

"One road death or accident is one too many and the release of these recent national road death figures should serve as a reminder to all road users and stakeholders, including all governments, to be ever-vigilant and work harder to achieve improvements.

"The ultimate safety outcome we are all striving for is a target of zero road deaths and serious injuries in Australia."

The biggest improvement was in South Australia (SA) where the death toll fell 19 percent from 100 in 2017 to 81 in 2018, followed by Victoria where it fell 17.4 percent.

New South Wales (NSW), Australia's most populous state, had the highest number of deaths on the road with 354, down 9 percent from 389 in 2017.

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and Northern Territory (NT) were the only two states or territories where the death toll rose. Enditem

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