2020 has been like no other year. Many occurrences during the year; in particular the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, have had an enormous impact across the state - including in the road safety space.
South Australians have seen wide ranging restrictions on intrastate, interstate and international travel since March 2020 when COVID-19 first hit the state. This has meant a reduction of visitors into the state but on the other hand more people moving around within our state.
It is very difficult to determine if COVID-19 has had a direct impact on the number of lives lost on South Australian roads in 2020 but they have certainly gone down. To date, in 2020 we have recorded 95 lives lost compared to 114 in 2019.
This is a reduction of 19 people who have been killed on our roads this year - but of course even one life lost is one too many.
"We cannot lose sight of the fact that there are still 95 lives lost on our roads which in some way has had a far reaching impact upon families, friends, work colleagues and others across our community, "Assistant Commissioner Ian Parrott said.
"We should also not forget the impact on the many emergency service workers, some of who are volunteers in our communities, who respond to serious and fatal crashes. For a large number of those people in our emergency services this is not a one off situation, particularly those who do this day in and day out all year as their primary role in society. "Once again; regional roads account for the largest percentage of where lives were lost in 2020. Even though the overall numbers of lives lost was down in regional areas by seven compared to 2019, the percentage rose from 65.79% of lives lost to 72.63%.
This is also compounded by the ongoing issue of local people dying on local roads. 27 lives lost on our regional roads occurred within 20 kilometres from their home or place of residence. There were 30 in 2019.
Metropolitan lives lost went down in overall numbers from 39 to 26 a reduction of 13 dropping from 34.21% to 27.37%. However, similar to regional roads 22 lives were lost within 20 kilometres of the person's home or residence.
Assistant Commissioner Parrott further said: "What is very encouraging is the significant reduction in serious injury crashes and the number of people who have suffered serious injuries on South Australian roads in 2020. .
We recorded 902 serious injury crash victims in 2019 compared to 695, which is down by nearly 23%. People who require intensive, and in some cases, significant long term support for serious injuries as a result of a crash can often be the forgotten impact of road trauma. The painful and long term nature of these injuries can have an equally devastating impact on individuals, families and loved ones."
What is a definite concern is the continued numbers of lives lost by motorcyclists. In 2019 17 lives were lost and in 2020 a total of 21, 19 riders and 2 passengers died on our roads whilst riding a motorcycle. The motorcycling community are vulnerable road users, are there are often no second chances when they are involved in a crash. We continue to implore all motorcyclists to simply take extra care on our roads.
Road Safety Minister Vincent Tarzia said there was an encouraging decrease in pedestrians lives lost, which dropped from 21 in 2019 to 8 in 2020 – a 61.90% reduction.
"I commend all South Australians for their vigilance on our roads in 2020, which saw a reduction in lives lost by 19 compared to 114 in 2019," Minister Vincent Tarzia said.
"Those 19 people have been able to spend cherished time with family and loved ones. Sadly, others weren't so fortunate.
"The decrease in lives lost is not cause for celebration, but a step in the right direction. Road safety needs our undivided attention in 2021 to prevent further tragedies.
"Now is not the time to drop our guard or be complacent. Now is the time to show patience, kindness and attention behind the wheel or on the motorcycle. That's how everyone makes it home safely."
Something of interest is that 10 people lost their lives aged between 16-19 and the same for those aged 80-89. So the number of lives lost on our roads does not discriminate across age. Everyone needs to take responsibility for their actions when driving, riding or walking on our roads
