Towards Zero

11,000 fewer people killed or seriously injured. 

If all cornerstones are fully implemented, we have the potential to save 11,000 people from being killed or seriously injured between 2008 and 2020. That is a reduction of around 40% on 2005-2007 levels.

Towards Zero means we do not accept that any human being should die or be seriously injured on our roads. Realistically we understand it is not practical to achieve zero serious injuries by the year 2020, but we do not accept any death or serious injury as inevitable.

Our long-term vision is of a road transport system where crashes resulting in death or seriously injury are virtually eliminated.  This vision can be achieved if the community as a whole makes a fundamental change in the way it thinks about road safety and what it is prepared to accept.

Help meet our target!
Responsibility for improving road safety rests with each of us.

There are things everyone can do to contribute to Towards Zero.  Each cornerstone includes initiatives for the community, corporate/industry and government.

Find out more by following the links below.
Safe Road Use
Safe Roads and Roadsides
Safe Speeds
Safe Vehicles

Click on the graph to enlarge.

In building a Safe System, we recognise that humans make errors and take risks no matter how educated and compliant we are in obeying traffic rules.  We recognise that it is probably not possible to prevent all crashes, but we aim to prevent those that result in death and serious injury.


We can build a Safe System by addressing the fact that in the event of a crash it is the interaction of three key elements that determine the outcomes:

• The speed at which the vehicle is travelling at impact.
• The safety performance of the vehicle.
• The object that is struck and how forgiving it is (for example, flexible roadside safety barriers are more forgiving than large, solid objects like trees).

Read more: The Curtin-Monash Accident Research Centre has developed a Towards Zero: Understanding a Safe System Approach to Road Safety fact sheet which provides an overview of Safe System strategies around the world and describe's the Towards Zero strategy.

The areas we need to address in creating a Safe System are:

Safe Road Use – Improving road user behaviour by:

• educating and encouraging road users to comply with the road rules and drive alert and unimpaired
• gradually introducing new (novice) drivers into the system
• taking action against those who break the rules
• promoting the philosophy of ‘shared responsibility’.

Safe Roads and Roadsides – Improving road infrastructure by:

• designing and maintaining roads and roadsides to reduce the risk of crashes occurring and the injuries if a crash does occur.

Safe Speeds – Ensuring speed limits and travel speeds are appropriate for the safety of the road infrastructure by:

• undertaking speed enforcement and education
• establishing speed limits according to the features of the road and roadside, vehicle crash-worthiness and the known limits of the road user.

Safe Vehicles – Improving the safety of the vehicles on the road by:

• promoting safety features that reduce the likelihood of a crash and the severity of injuries if a crash does occur
• encouraging consumers and businesses to purchase safer vehicles
• compulsory purchase of safe vehicles for government fleets.

Creating a Safe System depends on understanding and implementing the following five principles:

1. The limits of human performance. We all make mistakes and we need to acknowledge the limits of our capabilities.
2. The limits of human tolerance to violent force. In a crash there are physical limits to the amount of force out bodies can take before we are injured.
3. Shared responsibility. We all take an individual and shared role in road safety. Road users remain responsible for complying with all road rules. System designers are responsible for planning, designing and influencing a road system that caters for the mistakes people make in traffic.
4. A forgiving road system. We need to design a road system that is ‘inherently safe’ so when crashes do happen, deaths and serious injuries can be avoided.
5. Increased use of public transport. The fewer people driving cars and riding motorcycles and scooters, the fewer the number of fatal and serious injury crashes.

Over the past three decades, we have halved the number of road crash fatalities in Western Australia while our population has nearly doubled. Despite this, our performance compared to other Australian jurisdictions has recently dropped. When compared with a range of other nations, WA is an average performer in terms of deaths per 100,000 population.

The situation on regional roads is similar to that in low-income developing nations.

We do not and cannot accept the current level of death and injury. This strategy aims to deliver further substantial improvements.

Click on the graph to enlarge.

The outcomes of the strategy will also contribute to other areas of public policy and community interest. Specifically, it will help:

• enhance the quality of life and wellbeing of all people throughout Western Australia by providing high quality, accessible transport services
• reduce the number of hospital admissions and health resources used
• encourage low environmental impact alternatives to car use which will reduce energy consumption and slow climate change
• encourage more active lifestyles
• improve public amenity
• create safer local neighbourhoods.

Safe System Foundations is a support strategy essential to the successful implementation of the four cornerstones and achieving our vision.

Towards Zero uses a results-focused road safety management system that links what we are all doing (outputs) to what we are all trying to achieve (outcomes) to focus attention on substantial improvements in road safety for Western Australia.

Starting at the base of the pyramid we will continue to improve our data collection, information management and research capacity so that we understand the road safety problems and solutions better.

We will use this to build the capacity in our organisations to understand and lead the changes needed to inform and drive implementation of our key interventions for, and with, our community.

We will improve our ability to monitor and report on progress to political leaders, decision makers and the community.

Our objective

To prevent death and serious injury by developing support initiatives to ensure effective implementation of proven measures within the strategy cornerstones.

Towards Zero will focus on the following:

• Providing evidence through data collection and research to inform decision making and educate the community.
• Developing an understanding of, and support for, road safety as a discipline within Road Safety Council agencies through effective co-ordination.
• Building capacity and knowledge sharing within the agencies that contribute to road safety outcomes and throughout government and the community.
• Continuing to build partnerships with industry, the non-government sector and the community to work together to implement proven initiatives.

Performance indicators

We have identified some preliminary performance indicators, which we intend to use to monitor and report on our progress annually. These indicators will be further developed and refined through the action plans:

• Community views about the level of road trauma in Western Australia and the progress being made to reduce it.
• Percentage of the community that report taking specific actions intended to improve road safety for themselves, their family or others. 

Arriving Safely was Western Australia's road safety strategy for 2003-2007.

Download the strategy here:

Arriving Safely Road Safety Strategy for Western Australia 2003-2007 (31 page PDF 887 KB)








Annual Reviews of Arriving Safely were produced and are also available for download:

• 2007 Annual Review of Arriving Safely (32 page PDF 960 KB)
• 2006 Annual Review of Arriving Safely (40 page PDF 4.9 MB) 
• 2005 Annual Review of Arriving Safely (40 page PDF 838 KB)
• 2004 Annual Review of Arriving Safely (24 page PDF 1 MB) 
• 2003 Annual Review of Arriving Safely (28 page PDF 1 MB)