A new report has revealed that rural and regional areas are the hardest hit by cost of road trauma, with the Wingecarribee Shire costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands.
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The NRMA's Rate Your Road report identified the per capita cost of deaths and injuries over a five year period across NSW and unveiled new data into the public's view on the condition of the roads in those areas. This highlighted the link between road quality and safety.
According to the data in the Wingecarribee region between 2014 and 2018 there were 1540 crashes and 25 fatal crashes. This equated to a total cost of $364,996,264 and $7623 per person in the council area.
The Upper Lachlan Shire was the hardest hit with 473 crashes and eight fatal crashes. This cost a total of $113,400,250 which comes in at $14,737 per person in the region.
Comparatively, there were 1215 crashes in the Goulburn Mulwaree Council region with 18 fatal crashes. This comes in at a total cost of $257,436,080 or $8695 per person. In the Yass Valley there were 830 crashes and 16 fatal crashes. This came in at a total of $185,609,509 and $11,499 per capita.
NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury said the increase in cost between metropolitan and rural road trauma incidents was really quite staggering.
"Crashes in Upper Lachlan cost nearly double the average per capita as they do in metropolitan Sydney.
"It's really a wakeup call that investment in road safety infrastructure for the regions should not be an afterthought by government."
Since the NRMA launched the campaign the organisation has successfully advocated for almost $2 billion in new road funding from the NSW and Australian Governments, including funding during COVID-19 to keep projects moving and support employment. The NSW Government has also committed to transfer up to 15,000 kilometres of council-managed regional roads to the state to lessen the financial burden on those councils.
Mr Khoury said with the budget estimates season now underway at the state and federal level this report could help identify areas needed for additional road funding.
"There's no way to quantify the human cost of road accidents, but calculating the cost to taxpayers is one way to help identify the need for more funding to improve road conditions and road safety," he said.
"One of the reasons we're kicking off this campaign is that despite record breaking levels of road infrastructure investment there is still a lot more to do in the regions. We want the focus to be on improving road conditions and safety and that's really what we're hearing from motorists through this survey.
"It's clear from these results that poor road conditions aren't isolated to any one region - it's a much larger problem - one we believe is primarily driven by the budgetary constraints on councils.
"This is also why the NRMA supports the NSW Government's policy of transferring more of the regional road network into the jurisdiction of the State Government, provided this has no negative impact on existing funding for councils - it's about increasing and prioritising funding for the poorest roads across the state."
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