Submitted by Councillor Ken Liu on 2011.08.16, for demonstration that speed and wildlife on roads are key contributors to road crashes on Kangaroo Island.
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FORMATION OF A KI COMMUNITY ROAD SAFETY GROUP
A meeting attended by Cr Hobbs, myself and community representatives on Wednesday, 21/8/2002 indicated that it would be a great benefit to create a ‘community road safety group’ on Kangaroo Island. A public meeting will be arranged some time in September/October to formalise this group.
Community road safety groups are voluntary committees that rally community support to instigate public education and awareness of issues relating to road safety. The main focus of the groups is to identify road safety issues of concern within the local community and then to develop and implement measures which will contribute to reducing the risks of road crashes. Such measures will include influencing human behaviour on our roads and supporting initiatives that provide a safe road environment.
Attached to this report in Appendix 5, is a copy of ‘road accident statistic 1999-2001’ for Kangaroo Island, as well as a summary of number of vehicle accidents occurred on KI roads during the period 1995 – 2000 in Appendix 6.
To judge on whether there are any road safety problems on Kangaroo Island roads, a comparison using State of South Australia statistic as a benchmark is provided below.
|
Crash Statistic |
On Kangaroo Island Roads |
State of Sth Australia |
Safety Issues |
| Drivers involved in most crashes by age group | 16-20 (30%)
31-40 (16.7%) |
16-20 (17.3%)
31-40 (18.8%) |
Drivers of low age group |
| Highest number of fatal or serious casualties by age group | 16-20 (23.3%)
31-40 (9.3%) |
16-20 (16.9%)
31-40 (14.8%) |
No of young people injured |
| Number of drivers involved in crashes by place of residence | Local 54%
Mainland 40% Others 6% |
Not available |
Visitors not aware of road conditions |
| Fatal or serious crashes by speed zone | 110kph (65%)
70-100 (23%) 0-60 (11%) |
110kph (19%)
70-100 (25%) 0-60 (56%) |
Speed zoning |
| Number of fatal & serious casualties by road user type | Driver 51%
Passenger (47%) |
Driver (48%)
Passenger (29%) |
None |
| Worst record of crashes by day & time | Day (Tuesday)
Night (Sunday) |
Day (Friday)
Night (Saturday) |
None |
| Fatal or serious crashes by crash type | Single veh (82%)
Multi Coll (12%) Hit fix obj (50%) Rollover (31%) |
Single veh (43%)
Multi Coll (33%) Hit fix obj (28%) Rollover (13%) |
Road conditions & wildlife on road |
Members will note from figures above that there are safety issues on KI roads, in particular the high incidence of crashes involved young age drivers and drivers from outside the Island. The high number of single vehicle accidents and rollovers suggest that road conditions, speeds and wildlife on road could be the problems.
It is also interested to note that from the ‘vehicle accident records by road’ (Appendix 6), during 1995-2000:
- Of 142 accidents occurred within township roads on KI, 112 accidents were reported in Kingscote (79% or 7 accidents per 100 residents, comparing 13% or 6 accidents per 100 residents in Penneshaw), the worst accident record in all urban towns.
- North Coast/Emu Bay Road was the worst sealed road route on KI with an accident rate of 1.65 accidents per km of road, while Stokes bay Road was the worst unsealed road on KI with 0.69 accidents per km.
- The average number of vehicle accidents per km on low volume unsealed roads on KI was 0.19.
- Elsegood Road with a rate of 0.14 was the safest high volume unsealed road, excepting Jetty Road and Muston Road being accident free unsealed roads.
- Playford Highway is the worst Transport SA road with an accident rate of 1.64 per km, while American River Road was the safer route with only one accident over the 5 year period.
Recommendation – That the information be received.