The ‘road toll’ is a benign term that sanitises the senseless waste of human life in Australia | Paul Daley

Submitted by Paul Daley on Sat, 23/12/2023 - 10:00am

Society is inured to the misery of this macabre tally. We must urgently challenge the hegemony of this blithely adopted description

And, so, December ends with the reality-biting grimness that 2023 was the deadliest on Australian roads in five-and-a-half years.

The fact that 1,253 people were killed in Australian vehicle crashes to 18 December (three more people were killed two days later and still others may have been, too, by the time you read this) should be a matter of deep societal anguish and reflection. If people were dying violently in such numbers in any other way, it would be a national emergency.