The NRSPP is pleased to have submitted its response to the draft National Road Safety Strategy (NRSS) 2021-2030.

On 24 February, the Office of Road Safety released the draft National Road Safety Strategy 2021-30, aimed at a social model approach to deliver road safety actions by mapping a path towards building a road safety culture across Australian society.

NRSPP’s submission is primarily focused on the priority area of Workplace Road Safety but also provides some general comments on the Draft NRSS. A major achievement of the Draft NRSS is the inclusion of inclusion of Workplace Road Safety.

Reflecting back to the last NRSS 2001-2010, the NRSPP was created by the National Transport Commission (NTC) in response it, which made the case that society as a whole needs to share the responsibility for enhancing road safety; it is not just the domain of government. A key area of opportunity identified was workplace road safety and how organisations and businesses can do more to enhance road safety not only amongst their workers but within the sphere of their operations.

NRSPP key thoughts and recommendations regarding the Draft NRSS

  • Integrate Heavy Vehicle Safety with Workplace Road Safety efforts which are currently separate priority areas.
  • Modification of the action ‘Encourage and promote voluntary uptake of vehicle safety technologies ahead of regulation, including through ongoing support of the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) and through fleet purchasing policies’ to include Fit-for-Purpose and recently 5-Star ANCAP rated tested.
  • With regards to Workplace Road Safety specifically:
    • Encourage organisations to take a long-term perspective to the development and maintenance of its safety culture, through a process of continual improvement as identified through the NRSPP’s Grey Fleet Working Group.
    • Commonwealth Departments will include as part of their annual reporting the safe movement of its workforce and fleet
    • Encourage and support organisations to take responsibility for road and vehicle safety across their operations by developing a workplace road safety strategy, securing resourcing and identifying what actions and setting policies that can be implemented in the short, medium and long term and how they will be measured and reported.’
    • ‘Public, private and government organisations publicly report key workplace road safety measures at part of their annual reporting.
  • With regards to the action ‘Protect all road users from conflicts with construction vehicles through state/territory government construction contract requirements such as requiring inclusion of safety technologies.’ Needs stronger wording and does not reflect the application of the social model theory to road safety and should read:
    • All Government Funding allocated to major infrastructure projects should be conditional on the inclusion of the contract standards that protect all road users during its construction. The standards should draw on world’s best practice and include elements such as heavy vehicle technology, driver training, logistics planning and community education in relation to all construction vehicles.”

Over the past two years NRSPP has been leading work with regards to reducing the impact of suicide within the road safety system. Recognising that the only way to reduce this impact is through a broad systems-based approach bringing together road safety and mental health sectors. The NRSPP proposes the following considerations

  • Mindframe guidelines should be used for industry, media, government and internal communications;
  • There is a need to align data collection and recording processes with the national database (such as NCIS) for the reporting structure as a best preferred mechanism;
  • The reporting of suicide in transport data be undertaken on an annual basis and disseminated in conjunction with reporting of road safety data;·There is need to investigate infrastructure design and locations in conjunction with standardised contraction protocols to ascertain potential contributing factors between suicide and locations; and
  • There is a need to provide opportunities to share insights into near miss events which can improve knowledge, increase awareness along with skill development of risk identification and future prevention.

To read the full submission please go “NRSPP Submission To The Commonwealth Office Of Road Safety In Response To The Draft National Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030

NRSPP would like to thank Independent Chair, Prof. Barry Watson, Jerome Carslake, Program Director and Assoc. Prof. Sharon Newnan of Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC). NRSPP’s Host, for developing the submissions.

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