Professor Mary Sheehan

Road safety management of speed, alcohol and off-road driving in rural areas needs to change to stop the high number of road crashes in these places, according to the recommendations of a five-year study revealed today. 

The first study of its kind, the $1.9million Rural and Remote Road Safety Study was undertaken by Queensland University of Technology's Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety Queensland (CARRS-Q) and James Cook University's Road Safety Unit and examined the reasons behind the high prevalence of crashes in rural and remote Queensland.

During the study, 700 serious or fatal road crashes in rural areas were examined, and interviews were conducted with victims and officials involved in 400 of the serious injury cases to determine the cause of the crashes.

The study found there was a high rate of single-vehicle crashes, as well as off-road crashes and motorcycle crashes, and a high number involved speed and alcohol.

Principal investigator for the project, Professor Mary Sheehan, said the study had brought up a lot of new information about road safety in rural areas.

"Road safety in rural areas has been under-reported for such a long time," she said.

"The main aim of this study was to put the spotlight on crashes, put forward recommendations for future policies in the hope they will be used."

Prof Sheehan said speed was the common pathway to fatal crashes in rural areas, and reducing the speed limit on sealed roads to 90 km/hr and on unsealed roads to 80 km/hr would be an important move in the right direction.

She said there also needed to be a broadening of focus from the "wild, reckless young male driver" to the male driver aged between 30 and 50, as this age group comprised most of the people on the road and most of those involved in accidents.

"There is this large number of drivers in this age group who need to have more focus on them, but at the moment the focus of road safety campaigns is largely given to younger drivers," said Prof Sheehan.

She said off-road drivers were another group which had a high rate of crashes and injuries, and were also often overlooked by road safety enforcers.

"These off-road drivers are sort of falling outside the responsibility of transport and health regulators and there needs to be some department which picks up the direct responsibility for policy and management in this area," she said.

"At the moment, no-one is paying a lot of attention to this group, it is a hidden issue."

The study's findings and recommendations can be accessed at www.carrsq.qut.edu.au by clicking on the link under "News and Upcoming Events".