Safety ratings given to 500,000km of Australian roads should be made public, a motoring body has urged, to ensure pre-election funding announcements are based on safety rather than votes.
The Australian Automobile Association issued the call on Friday as it launched a pre-election transport campaign called My Safety Counts.
The group will urge its 9.5 million members to contact election candidates about road safety as part of the campaign and encourage them to ask why particular funding decisions are made.
The call comes almost one year after the group won concessions around the collection of road safety data from states and after Australia's annual road toll rose again to reach 1292.
While a federal election has yet to be called, both major parties have announced commitments to upgrade roads around Australia, including $1.1 billion for Victoria's Western Highway and up to $115 million for Terrigal Drive on the NSW Central Coast.
Further road funding commitments were expected to be unveiled in the federal budget, Australia Automobile Association managing director Michael Bradley said, and voters should be able to access information to help them assess spending.
"Our polling continuously shows Australians are concerned that political imperatives outweigh community safety implications when funding choices are made," he said.
"Australian voters are paying for the road upgrades being announced, just as they have paid for the safety assessments being kept secret."
About 500,000km of roads have been given a rating out of five stars under the Australian Road Assessment Program, co-ordinated by Austroads and following international standards.
The ratings are based on factors including road surface conditions, hazards, safety barriers and crash statistics to determine the risk of serious injuries and deaths for motorists.
This information should guide which roads are a priority for federal funding, Mr Bradley said, and safety ratings should be published when politicians announce upgrades.
"Australian motoring clubs want this campaign to improve the safety of our roads and the integrity of how they're funded," he said.
"Baking the publication of (road safety) ratings into Australia's opaque road funding processes will finally show Australians whether project announcement are grounded in evidence of whether they are instead aimed at winning votes."
The motoring body successfully lobbied the federal government in 2024 to require road safety data from the states, including statistics about the cause of road accidents.
Its latest safety campaign comes after a rise in the national road toll, with figures released by the federal government in February showing 1292 lives were lost on Australian roads in 12 months – a rise of 1.6 per cent.
