Driving safer cars will improve road safety outcomes and help save lives.
Strengthening child restraint laws
Road crashes are the leading cause of death for children aged 1 to 14 and many of these tragedies can be prevented with the proper use of a child restraint or seatbelt.
Currently, South Australia’s child restraint laws are outdated and do not reflect national best practice.
RAA is calling for:
The minimum age for children travelling forward-facing to increase from six to 12 months.
Child restraints to be used in taxis, consistent with rules for rideshare and private vehicles.
Greater clarity around rules governing how tall a child aged 7 to 16 should be before being allowed to use an adult seatbelt.
Increased access to special-purpose child restraints for children living with a disability.
Reducing the age of our fleet
RAA supports measures to ensure the new car fleet remains affordable and accessible, so more consumers replace their older vehicles with newer, safer and more fuel-efficient ones.
Currently, South Australia has the oldest fleet of all states except Tasmania. The average age of our passenger vehicles is almost 13 years, well above the national average of 11 years.
Measures to help uptake of new cars includes reducing taxes and charges at both the federal and state level (including vehicle import taxes and stamp duty) and maintaining a competitive new car market.
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