Newly released data from the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE) reveals that 1,324 lives were lost on Australian roads between January 2024 and January 2025, the highest annual total in over a decade, and a 6% increase compared to the previous year. While this headline figure is concerning, it also presents a moment of clarity.
Queensland, the ACT, Northern Territory, and Western Australia recorded increases, while Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania saw small but meaningful declines. New South Wales remained steady, albeit with the highest overall number of deaths (333), followed closely by Queensland (309), a 12.8% rise year-on-year.
An Opportunity to Refocus and Reframe
This poses a strong signal that we must continue refining and evolving our approach to road safety. Traditional communications have played a vital role over the years, but today's audience demands a more nuanced, place-based, and behavioural strategy.
The data tells us where the risks are most pronounced, who is being impacted, and how. What’s also telling is that the opportunity to intervene still exists, and it lies in reaching the right people, in the right context, at exactly the right time.
Reaching People Where Decisions Are Made
Programs that shift behaviour don’t happen by chance. They happen when messaging intersects with lived experience, especially in environments where high-risk decisions are made.
Convenience Advertising’s network of 2,000+ pubs, clubs, and bars provides a unique opportunity to speak to Australians in high-attention, high-relevance moments. Our bathroom media placements deliver an average dwell time of two minutes, and our partnerships with road safety leaders like TAC and Transport for NSW have demonstrated that contextual, in-venue programs can make a meaningful difference.
A Moment for Collaboration and Innovation
The rise in fatalities is sobering, but it also gives us a renewed sense of direction. Now is the time to double down on what works, build on partnerships that drive impact, and explore even more effective ways to reach at-risk audiences.
With evidence-led strategy, community relevance, and trusted delivery channels, Australia can, and will , continue to improve road safety outcomes.
359 of fatal crashes took place in 100km/h zones (29.6%), being the deadliest speed limit in comparison by far, but only being a slight increase of 0.9% from last year. The largest increase was 80, 90km zones, climbing 2.9% from 204 to 210 fatalities.
Demographics
Age
While overall road fatality numbers remain a key focus of national safety strategies, the demographic breakdown reveals stark and concerning disparities. Australians aged 40 to 64 represent the most significantly impacted cohort, accounting for 420 road deaths, or 31.7% of total fatalities, substantially higher than any other age group.
This is followed by individuals aged 26 to 39, with 276 recorded deaths, highlighting a concentration of road trauma among working-age Australians who are otherwise in the most economically and socially productive stages of life.
These figures underscore the importance of targeted road safety messaging and intervention strategies that not only reduce overall fatalities but also respond to the nuanced risk profiles of age-specific populations. For organisations invested in public health communication, such as Convenience Advertising, these insights represent a critical opportunity to tailor programs to the groups most affected—where the impact could be both immediate and measurable.
Deaths by age
Gender
Men are at a much higher risk than women: 3 times more males than females were killed in crashes this year. However, this margin is smaller than the previous years, as the female deaths rose 12%.
Location Matters: Concentration of Road Fatalities in Urban and Regional Areas
Location data reveals a clear pattern: 74.5% of road deaths occur in major cities and inner-regional areas, with outer-regional areas slightly above average. In contrast, only 6.2% of fatalities (82 deaths) occurred in remote or very remote regions (BITRE, 2025).
This spatial distribution, combined with existing disparities across age and gender, provides a clear direction for road safety interventions.
Targeted messaging focused on high-risk demographics and geographies will be essential to reducing preventable deaths and maximising campaign impact.
E-Scooters: A Modern Mobility Trend with Mounting Safety Risks
E-scooter use is booming across Australia, with 3.6 million adults (18%) now participating (McTiernan et al., 2022). But alongside this rise comes a growing safety concern.
Since 2018, hospitals have recorded over 4,200 e-scooter-related injuries, mostly involving head and facial trauma (AIHW, 2023). Men account for 62% of these cases, and alcohol is a major factor — with 71% of trauma admissions in one Tasmanian study involving intoxication (Tarnanen et al., 2022).
In partnership with the TAC, Convenience Advertising launched a targeted awareness campaign reaching riders in bars and entertainment precincts, reframing drunk e-scootering as a serious public risk.
As micro-mobility expands, timely, high-impact messaging is key to keeping e-scooters safe, not just convenient.
CALD
Awareness messaging on critical issues like road safety can often be overlooked or misunderstood by individuals whose primary language is not English, a group that makes up 22.3% of Australia’s population, and almost 30% of Victoria’s population.
At Convenience Advertising, we proactively ensure multilingual representation in our programs where it’s needed most. With Australia’s diverse linguistic landscape, we leverage our CaptiVision screens, which can switch between languages and be customised to display the most relevant CALD languages in specific areas across Victoria. This ensures that vital safety messages reach and resonate with diverse communities effectively.
Convenience Advertising and strategic targeting
Convenience Advertising’s bathroom media channel has been an integral part of road safety programs for Transport for NSW for the past 10 years and the Transport Accident Commission (TAC) in Victoria for the past six. Our network has also supported government-led road safety programs in Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory.
With over 2,000 pubs, clubs, and bars across the Convenience Advertising network, we reach Australians in high-risk environments, at the very moment decisions about driving are being made. This is what makes our media a powerful tool for intervention: it delivers life-saving messages in the locus of risk.
Our 2-minute average dwell time in bathroom spaces ensures the message is not only seen, but absorbed, far exceeding typical out-of-home engagement metrics.
Successful public behaviour change requires more than just awareness, it demands timely, targeted communication. As road fatalities rise to record levels, the need for evidence-led, location-specific messaging is more urgent than ever.
