Parents helping their kids buy a first car should be spending that "little bit more" to ensure the vehicle has at least some up-to-date safety features, the federal transport minister has warned, speaking against the backdrop of a sharp spike in road deaths, particularly among the young.
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Describing the deaths of more than 1200 people on Australian roads in 2016 as a "tragedy of national proportions", Transport and Infrastructure Minister Darren Chester said road trauma was costing governments across the country about $30 billion a year, with an "immeasurable" social impact.
Improved roads were part of the solution as was better driver behaviour, Mr Chester said, but safer vehicles had to be part of the mix, particularly for young drivers.
"It is a complex equation" he told ABC News 24 during an interview on New Years Day.
It was "one of the great ironies of modern life … that the worst car you will ever drive is probably going to be your first car, and that's when you are at the highest risk of having an accident".
He said parents assisting children with first vehicle purchases should "spend a little bit more and get a car with … safety features" because it increased survivability in the event of a crash.
Car-byers could seek guidance from sites such as the Australasian New Car Assessment Program, he said.
Latest figures from the Transport NSW Centre for Road Safety show a 10 per cent increase in road fatalities across the state in 2016 over the previous year, with an alarming 42 per cent jump in deaths among those aged between 17 and 25. Road deaths among those aged between 26 and 39 rose by a 15 per cent.
Police and motorist organisations such as the NRMA have pointed to increased risk taking by drivers using mobile devices as a strong causative factor. Pedestrian fatalities have also leapt by 20 per cent over the year, with police against laying part of the blame on inattention owing to smart phones and tablets .
Overall road deaths in the state were up some 10 per cent on the previous year, with a jump from 348 in 2015 to 382 as of December 29, 2016.
Deputy chair of the NSW parliament's Staysafe committee, Liberal MP Scott Farlow, said the figures were of "significant concern". He said a parliamentary inquiry called late last year into the road toll would examine "whole of life" driver education including the the needs of driver trainers. The inquiry would be open to public submissions until the end of February.
Mr Chester said the federal government was working with offshore manufacturers to ensure that " they send us their safest possible cars [as] in the past they have been slow to put some of the safety features into Australia". He said the second car market offered "pretty good" safety features for about $10,000.
However, Opposition transport spokesman Anthony Albanese said while Mr Chester's advice about parents helping children buy safer cars was common sense, "a lot of people can't afford to buy their kids a car at all".
"Those young people have to save up and buy their own car."
He accused the government of underspending on its Black Spots road program, and of exaggerating its claimed $50 billion spend on infrastructure, saying the figure was closer to $34 billion up until 2019.
"You don't want this issue to be political but the fact is that the change [in the road toll] has occurred on this government's watch" Mr Albanese said.
"The minister is right to say that a solution requires better roads, better drivers and better cars but this government has also dismantled that road safety tribunal that we had in place for heavy vehicles and has not replaced it with anything."
