Heavy Vehicle Safety in Rural and Remote Areas

Road safety in rural and remote areas of Australia and New Zealand continues to be a major area of concern. Analysis of crash data also shows that a substantial proportion of crashes in these areas involve heavy vehicles. On average there have been about 1,755 heavy vehicle casualty crashes each year in rural Australia during the 5-year period 2001-2005. Of these about 10 per cent were fatal crashes. In rural New Zealand the average annual number of casualty crashes during the same period is 518, and of these almost 12 per cent were fatal crashes. With the predicted doubling of the freight activity between 2000 and 2020 it can be expected that road crashes involving heavy vehicles will also increase markedly, unless safety measures can be put in place that focus on heavy vehicles. This report seeks to put forward a range of measures to improve road safety for heavy vehicles into the future. (a)