NT road fatalities: Why deaths on Territory roads are ‘alarmingly higher’ than in other states
Two leading Australian academics specialising in public safety have lifted the lid on why the NT is the most dangerous place in the nation to get behind the wheel.
Northern Territory
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A higher proportion of drunk drivers getting behind the wheel, unsafe pedestrian behaviour, poor road infrastructure and high speed limits are just some of the factors that make Territory roads the most unsafe in the nation, two leading academics say.
The Territory is on track to record the highest number of road user deaths in more than a decade, with 42 Territorians – drivers, passengers and pedestrians alike – losing their lives so far in 2024, compared to seven this time last year.
Dr Milad Haghani, senior lecturer in urban mobility, public safety and disaster risk at the University of New South Wales’ School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, told this masthead the Territory had long exceeded the other jurisdictions in road fatalities.
“Road deaths in the NT are alarmingly higher than in other Australian states, relative to their population or the number of registered vehicles,” he said.
“The NTs road death rate is about three to four times the national average.”
If the current 2024 rate is replicated, the Territory can expect to lose 20 more souls this year.
“While road crash statistics do fluctuate, the extent of the rise in fatalities this year is alarming and unprecedented in recent years, which is cause for concern,” Dr Haghani said.
A number of factors unique to the Territory make us especially vulnerable – some are social and difficult to reverse swiftly, but others come down to our own rank stupidity.
“Drink driving appears to be a relatively bigger contributor to the NT road toll than in other states,” Dr Haghani said.
“While drink driving still occurs nationwide, over the last two to three decades, we have managed to bring it under control through legislation, education, behavioural campaigns, and overall culture-building around this issue.
“However, if we compile the data of NT road fatalities for the period of 2013–2022, alcohol emerges as the most prevalent contributing factor by a relatively large margin.”
According to figures provided by Dr Haghani, alcohol was a key contributing factor in almost 200 deaths over the period, nearly double the next highest factor, speed.
In the Territory, pedestrians and Aboriginal people are also vastly over-represented in the data.
Dr Haghani said pedestrians account for 20–30 per cent of NT road fatalities, compared to 11–13 per cent nationally.
He theorised this could be a combination of poor pedestrian infrastructure and risky road user behaviour, the two frequently going hand-in-hand.
Meanwhile, more than 50 per cent of our road fatalities over the past decade have involved Aboriginal people, who comprise just 30 per cent of the NT population.
“This indicates that targeted interventions are urgently needed to address the specific vulnerabilities and risks faced by Aboriginal communities in the NT,” Dr Haghani said.
Dr Haghani, who stressed that Australia was a world leader in road safety policy – as recognised by the World Health Organisation – said the NT was falling through the cracks.
He urged more frequent random and static roadside breath tests, harsher drink driving penalties, greater investment in pedestrian infrastructure, removing barriers to obtaining driver’s licences for those living in remote Aboriginal communities, and expanded commonwealth investment in road research opportunities in the NT.
“There is a shortage of academics specialising in NT road safety,” Dr Haghani said.
“It is crucial that tertiary education institutions invest more in road safety research.”
Professor Julie Brown, joint director of the Transurban Road Safety Centre, said that if the Territory was serious about achieving ‘Vision Zero’, the international commitment to strive towards zero road deaths by 2050 – which all Australian governments are party to – then the NT government needs to invest significantly in road infrastructure.
“There are things that governments and experts know could be implemented towards delivering this sort of safe, total system, but there’s got to be a total willingness to accept some of these things,” she said.
“Probably the most clear example is about roads and speed limits.
“The core of the safe system principle is that we need to acknowledge people make mistakes and we need to have a system that is 100 per cent forgiving of those mistakes.”
In practice, Prof. Brown said, that means dual carriageways for any roads greater than 80km/h – and especially at 130km/h – other infrastructure such as guard rails, and a policy to get unsafe, older cars off the road.
If the NT government does not have the cash or willpower for that, then speed limit reductions are its next best option.
“It basically comes down to whether we are ready to accept death or not,” Prof. Brown said.
“If we think one death is one death too many, then we have to be serious.”
Asked whether it was possible to quantify the hit to the Territory’s economy the loss of more than 40 lives has wreaked – the value of a statistical life in Australia is $5.4m for a young adult with a presumed 40 years of life left – Prof. Brown said it was “almost impossible”.
“We can try and account for the acute costs to health system, account for economic cost for lost productivity, but the truth is that every single life lost is impacting many, many people for many, many years to come,” she said.
“Those types of costs are impossible to calculate.”
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