Beyond the cities, rural roads have continued to record a disproportionate share of Australia’s road accidents and deaths, despite carrying far less traffic and having fewer residents than metropolitan areas.
Across New South Wales, around 67–69 per cent of road fatalities occur on rural and regional roads, even though only about one-third of the population lives outside major cities.
Nationally, the gap is also clear.
National Road Safety Strategy data has shown the road fatality rate in rural and regional Australia is about 9.6 deaths per 100,000 people, compared with 2.2 per 100,000 in cities.
NSW Parliament’s StaySafe Committee Chair, Greg Warren MP said multiple factors continue to drive the long-standing imbalance in road trauma between rural and metropolitan areas.
“There are a number of factors that need to be considered in relation to road accidents that are based around geography, road use, but fatigue continues to be a major factor particularly in rural and regional NSW,” he said.
“You also can’t move past the habitat of driving around rural roads. Things like kangaroos, wildlife, some of the unique challenges that you find in rural and regional areas.
“Being prepared and understanding the unique nature of these areas, as well as the challenges that it brings with it, is an area that we can probably observe a lot better in terms of education.”
In 2025, New South Wales recorded 355 road deaths, with 241 in regional areas, meaning almost 70 per cent of fatalities occurred outside major cities.
The Australian Automobile Association data shows 818 people died on regional roads in 2023, compared with 436 on metropolitan roads, further supporting that more than half of all road deaths occur in rural areas.
Motorists in regional Australia are also up to five times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than those in metropolitan areas.
Data shows 73 per cent of regional road deaths involve lane departure crashes, including run-off-road and head-on collisions, where speed, road design and roadside hazards increase severity.
Crookwell resident, Kath Dunn was involved in a head-on crash on a rural road in 2023 and is still living with its impact today.
“I was heading home on New Year’s Day when I came around a corner on Crookwell Road and saw a driver on the opposite side of the road lose control before crossing into my lane and colliding head-on with my car,” she said.
“My injuries were very serious with a C1 and C6 break to the neck. I had to be placed in a neck brace 24 hours a day.
“I then had to have emergency surgery two months later to fuse the C5 and C6 together.
“After the accident emotionally I was not coping at all and was later diagnosed with PTSD and I had to go onto medication and see a psychologist. The accident took a lot from me.”
In 2025, speeding contributed to 134 of NSW’s 355 road deaths, almost four in ten fatalities, while fatigue, alcohol and drugs also remained significant contributors.
While speeding remains the leading cause of NSW road deaths, driver behaviour remains central to road safety, with human error involved in up to 95 per cent of crashes.
“You can’t move past driver behaviour, it is so important that people need to manage themselves. At the end of the day people need to take responsibility,” Mr Warren said.
“We can upgrade every road in NSW, but it does not remove the most important factor that people need to drive to the conditions. They need to manage their behaviour in these areas.”
Higher-speed rural roads leave less margin for error, meaning fatigue, speeding or impairment are more likely to result in serious injury or death.
Young drivers are overrepresented in rural crash data, with national figures showing higher rates of serious and fatal crashes due to inexperience, longer distances travelled and greater exposure to high-speed roads.
While the figures show the scale of the problem, they do not capture the human cost behind them.
Former Crookwell resident Nerida Hewitt lost her older brother, Chris “Jumbo” Hewitt, in a rural road crash when she was a teenager.
“Jumbo was 23, he was heading home to see our dad for Father’s Day. On his way out, one of his mates convinced him to turn around and go out in town. They’ve then gone out and had a great night,” she said.
“Then in the early hours of the morning, he decided to hop in his car and drive home and according to police records, he fell asleep and hit a tree.
“I was 19 and living in London at the time, the phone rang quite early and it was my dad. He asked me if someone was with me, I knew in that instant something had happened. He said it was Chris, he’s gone and I just burst into tears.”
Despite ongoing safety initiatives, regional roads have consistently recorded significantly more fatalities than metropolitan roads over the past decade.
Government campaigns continue to target fatigue awareness, encouraging drivers to take regular breaks on regional routes.
The NSW Government is investing in regional road upgrades, including median barriers, road widening and intersection improvements on high-risk corridors, alongside ongoing maintenance.
These initiatives form part of the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2026, focused on safer roads, safer vehicles and safer road use.
“The Federal Parliament has a number of safety measures put in place. They have programs, called the black spot programs, which highlight black spot areas that are significantly higher than other specific areas,” Mr Warren said.
“What that means is funding is targeted for those high-risk areas, as well as other educational programs through numerous platforms of media.”
Emergency response systems are also being strengthened through investment in regional ambulance services, trauma care and medical retrieval, where longer response times remain a challenge.
Despite ongoing investment and education campaigns, regional Australians continue to face significantly higher risks on the road than those in metropolitan areas.
For policymakers, the challenge remains closing a gap that has persisted for decades.
For families like the Hewitts and survivors like Kath Dunn, the statistics are more than numbers. They represent lives forever changed by rural road trauma.
