South Australian roads will be under tighter safety regulations, with the State Government releasing a new road safety action plan in an attempt to combat the road toll.
The South Australian Road Safety Action Plan 2008-2010, developed in conjunction with the Road Safety Advisory Council, is based on national research and analysis of road crash data.
Initiatives introduced in the plan include roadside random drug testing, full-time mobile random breath-testing and immediate loss of licence for high-level drink driving and speeding offenders.
SA road safety minister Carmel Zollo said while the number of monthly road fatalities in the state has decreased from 11 to nine over the past five years, a further reduction is needed.
“To achieve our strategic plan target of less than 90 fatalities and 1,000 serious injuries by the end of 2010, fatalities need to reduce to no more than 8 fatalities per month,” she said.
“We’ve always believed you can’t be passive when it comes to road safety and having set our targets we’re following through with active steps to make sure we achieve them.”
Along with other jurisdictions across Australia, the SA action plan adopts the Safer System approach, which stresses education and enforcement as well as the recognition of human error on the road.
The plan features collaborated expertise of the organisations including the Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure, the Road Safety Advisory Council, SA Police and the Motor Accident Commission.
Copies of the South Australian Road Safety Action Plan 2008-2010 are available online at www.dtei.sa.gov.au.