South Australia is failing to meet its own road safety targets, with devastating human and economic consequences playing out in every electorate across the State.
On average, nearly two people are killed and 15 seriously injured every week on South Australian roads. This level of road trauma carries an annual social cost exceeding $633 million and places avoidable pressure on police, emergency services and hospitals.
South Australia has reached the halfway mark of its Road Safety Strategy to 2031 – yet progress is significantly off track. The State committed to reducing deaths to fewer than 43 and serious injuries to fewer than 474 per year by 2031. In 2025 alone, 87 people were killed and 779 were seriously injured.
This is not a marginal shortfall. It is a profound gap between commitment and reality.
“This trajectory is unacceptable and preventable,” said Dr Jamie Mackenzie, Chair of the ACRS South Australian Chapter. “We are moving further away from our own targets, not closer. Road trauma is the result of policy, funding and design decisions – and with an election approaching, candidates must commit to measurable reductions in deaths and serious injuries and be accountable for delivering them.”
Behind these numbers are families facing lifelong consequences – brain injuries, spinal damage and permanent disability – alongside a growing and avoidable economic burden on the community.
With the South Australian election scheduled for 21 March 2026, the Australasian College of Road Safety (ACRS) South Australian Chapter is calling on all candidates to publicly acknowledge the burden of road trauma in their electorate, commit to decisive action, and accept accountability for results.
The ACRS has developed electorate-level maps showing the location, trauma burden and social cost of poor road safety performance across the State. Voters deserve to understand how road trauma is affecting their local community when assessing the priorities of candidates seeking their vote.
The ACRS is calling on the next South Australian Government to:
- Establish an independent Statutory Office for Road Safety to report directly to Parliament on safety performance.
- Immediately publish AusRAP Safety Star Ratings for the State’s arterial road network, honouring the national commitment to transparency.
- Modernise planning and design standards to ensure new communities are built with safe infrastructure for walking, cycling and public transport from the outset.
- Recognise road trauma prevention as essential to reducing ambulance demand and hospital overcrowding.
Without urgent, coordinated, whole-of-government action, South Australia will continue to accept preventable deaths and serious injuries as the price of mobility.
The time for rhetoric has passed. Road safety must be a central election issue. South Australians should not have to wait until 2031 to see meaningful progress.