WA is falling well short of its target to reduce the rate of people killed and seriously injured on our roads, with projections indicating a gap of more than 80 per cent between the goal and reality by the time the long-term strategy expires in 2020.

And new research by the Australian Automobile Association (AAA) this week found WA was only behind the Northern Territory and Tasmania for worst fatality rate per capita.

The AAA revealed that if WA was to achieve Victoria’s rate (the lowest of any State) then 56 lives could be saved annually.

AAA chief executive Michael Bradley said no Australian State was on track to achieve the required road death reductions.

“These figures should serve as a wake-up call to State and Federal governments, as they clearly show our road safety strategy to be a failure,” he said.

Road Safety Council minutes from March last year reveal an alarming forecast for WA’s 12-year road safety strategy Towards Zero.

Camera Icon Iain Cameron. Credit: Justin Benson-Cooper

At the end of 2015 — almost two-thirds the way through the strategy — WA was 67 per cent below where it needed to be to achieve the desired 40 per cent reduction in the “killed or seriously injured” (KSI) rate.

“A KSI reduction of 550 per year was required to achieve the 40 per cent reduction but the seven-year average to 2015 was only 180 leaving, if those projects continued, an 82 per cent differential by 2020 between desired and actual KSI reductions,” the minutes state.

Acting Road Safety Commissioner Iain Cameron said those figures were from a cumulative perspective.

He stressed another way to look at it was from a start and end point — and at the end of 2015 WA had recorded a 28 per cent reduction, which was not too far off the goal of 40 per cent.

Mr Cameron said that target had started off as an “ambitious aspiration” — higher than the national aim of 30 per cent — which later turned into a target.

Last year, WA had a record low number of road fatalities (158) but in 2016 that tally was much higher at 196.

The KSI rate for 2016 was still being calculated as it took a longer time to collate information from hospitals and police on those seriously injured in road crashes.

Mr Cameron concedes from a cumulative point of view the State is facing an uphill battle to hit the target.

“This is a sleeper effect of some years ago that we weren’t able to implement as much as we wanted as quickly as we could to get the compounding interest,” he said.

“But at the end of 2015 we were 28 per cent versus 40 per cent ... it’s not just about numbers, it’s about people and at the end of the day is it 30 per cent we achieve, is that a failure against 40 per cent? Or is it that we’re 30 per cent better off and we might have only achieved 10 per cent if we’d been safe and conservative?

“I’m not trying to talk up that we’re all hunky dory, we’re not, we’ve got some significant challenges ... (but) I firmly believe we can get 40 per cent, I firmly believe in the longer term we can get zero.”

Preliminary work has already started on a new road safety strategy.

Road Safety Minister Michelle Roberts said the McGowan Government was making progress in road safety, and she was “absolutely committed” to reducing the rate of death and serious injury on our roads even further.

WA ROAD DEATHS

2005: 164

2006: 200

2007: 235

2008: 205

2009: 191

2010: 193

2011: 179

2012: 183

2013: 161

2014: 182

2015: 161

2016: 196

2017: 158

Source: Road Safety Commission