Record Regional Road Toll Hits 1,000 As Report Blames Complacency

Record regional road toll hits 1,000 due to complacency, report finds. A record 1,000 lives were lost on rural and regional roads last year. A new report says complacency and a flagrant approach to road rules are the causes.

Peter Kalbfell sustained serious spinal injuries in a road crash in outback Queensland in 2000. ( ABC Wide Bay: James C Taylor ) The crash that nearly ended Peter Kalbfell's life happened on a long, deserted highway in outback Queensland. "There is a lot of nothing out there, you know," he said. In January 2000, Mr Kalbfell was driving back home to Alice Springs after a "whirlwind" Christmas holiday with family and friends in Maryborough, three hours north of Brisbane.

Peter Kalbfell is president and head coach of the Fraser Coasters Wheelchair Basketball Club. ( ABC Wide Bay: James C Taylor ) It was a trip he and his then-girlfriend had made countless times before, which, he conceded, led them to "be a bit more complacent" about driving while fatigued. With his girlfriend behind the wheel, Mr Kalbfell undid his seatbelt to get more comfortable.

Peter Kalbfell was injured in a serious crash near Kynuna in outback Queensland. ( ABC News: Lucy Cooper ) He does not remember what happened next. Police later told him the car had veered off the road and rolled seven or eight times, crushing him underneath.

The crash rendered him an incomplete quadriplegic: paralysed from the neck down except for minimal movement in his arms and legs. Mr Kalbfell's girlfriend sustained minor injuries. While the pair survived, a new report has identified an increasing number of fatal crashes on rural and regional roads.

An analysis by the Australian Road Safety Foundation (ARSF) found 906 people died on roads outside the capital cities in 2025, a 10.5 per cent increase on 2024. According to the ARSF report, 906 lives were lost on rural, regional and remote roads in 2025. The ARSF understands this to be the highest number of regional fatalities since 2020. Deaths on rural, regional and remote roads made up nearly 70 per cent of the national road toll in 2025, despite only about 25 per cent of the population living in those locations. The study released last month found complacency was one of the main causes of risk-taking on regional roads, with many drivers saying they broke road rules because they believed it was safe to do so on familiar roads. ARSF president Russell White said drivers needed to take more responsibility for their own safety.

Mr White said some simple techniques could help to disrupt complacency and improve driver awareness and responsiveness on the road. Ioni Lewis is an expert in driver psychology at the Queensland University of Technology. Fatalities in Mr Kalbfell's home region of the Wide Bay have led Queensland's road toll for the past five years.

Detective Senior Sergeant Wade Lee said he had attended more than 100 crashes in his 35-year career in Wide Bay. The officer himself was the victim of a head-on collision while on duty on a rainy day in 2021. Wade Lee has attended more than 100 crashes in his 35-year career as a police officer. ( ABC Wide Bay: James C Taylor ) Senior Sergeant Lee said the other vehicle lost control in the wet conditions and collided with his unmarked police car, which was then rear-ended by a semi-trailer. While he is no longer a first responder, he says his officers attend crashes daily, often delivering heartbreaking news to families.