CANBERRA, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- Car crashes are costing the Australian economy more than 23 billion U.S. dollars every year, a report has found.
The Australian Automobile Association (AAA), Australia's peak motoring body, released its Cost of Road Trauma in Australia report on Monday which valued loss of life, vehicle damage and disability care as a result of car crashes at 23.89 billion U.S. dollars.
The report, the first of its kind for 10 years in Australia, also identified that crashes cost Australian governments 2.9 billion U.S. dollars in the form of lost tax income and emergency services.
"More than 100 Australians are killed in car crashes every month and the same number are seriously injured every day, so the significance of this problem cannot be over-stated," AAA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Michael Bradley said in a media release on Monday.
The AAA made several recommendations to state and federal governments to improve road safety including re-establishing the National Office for Road Safety to improve driver education.
The report also called for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to develop guidelines so that the promotion of vehicle safety ratings is consistent.
Darren Chester, Australia's infrastructure and transport minister, said in a media release on Monday that the government was fully committed to improving road safety.
"The Government's Infrastructure Investment Programme will continue to improve the safety on our roads with a contribution of over (3.1 billion U.S. dollars) to safety projects," Chester said.
The AAA report came as a Monash University study, published in the Medical Journal of Australia on Monday, found that the number of major injuries on Australian roads was growing as the number of deaths fell.
The number of major injuries on roads increased 8 percent between 2007 and 2015, researcher found, with 55 percent of injuries being sustained by people in cars.
