One hard truth: 355 lives lost. One simple message: slow down

NSW ended 2025 with 355 people losing their lives on our roads. It is a number that should give all of us pause.

 

And that’s because behind this number sits a devastating truth: someone in our state is dying on our roads almost every single day.

This is not an abstract statistic. These are people who left home expecting to return. Families who answered the door to police instead of a loved one. Communities who will carry the weight of these losses for years.

When the number of deaths reaches this scale, we owe it to every one of those 355 people to stop and confront what is driving this tragedy.

And the evidence is clear: speed is killing people.

Not just the extreme behaviour that draws headlines or news bulletins. Not just the rare, reckless conduct captured on dashcams or social media.

What ends lives on NSW roads, day after day, is often far more ordinary.

A few kilometres over the limit; a few kilometres faster in the rain; a few kilometres quicker on a familiar stretch of road. A subconscious press of the pedal.

Small increases in speed, at the wrong moment, leave no room to recover.

Trauma specialists, crash investigators and first responders tell me the same thing: even minor speeding dramatically increases the force of a collision and reduces the chance of survival. This is not opinion. It’s physics.

Throughout 2025, the Minns Government strengthened the foundations of road safety across the state by investing $2.8 billion over four years.

This includes upgrades to high-risk corridors, improvements to intersections, wider shoulders, strengthened pavements, and the introduction of landmark motorcycle safety reforms.

We are also expanding enforcement with an average speed camera trial and new seatbelt detection cameras. And we are increasing police presence and investing in evidence-based behavioural campaigns.

These initiatives are saving lives. But it’s clearly not enough.

We need to be honest about the limits of infrastructure, technology and enforcement. They make the road environment safer, but they cannot override a decision made when we sit in the driver’s seat.

Most of us are not reckless on the road. We are managing everyday pressures: traffic, fatigue, distraction, weather. But these pressures mean our margin for error is shrinking, and speed erases that margin faster than anything else.

So, as we begin 2026, the message is clear: slow down.

Speeding could cost you your life, or the life of someone you love. It could also end the life of someone you have never met. So, please, give yourself time, give others space and always drive to the conditions.

Road safety is not built on perfection. It is built on responsibility – the quiet, everyday responsibility we owe to ourselves, to the people we love, and to those we share the road with.

If we take that responsibility seriously, 2026 can be the year we begin to turn these numbers around.

This opinion piece was originally published in The Daily Telegraph on Friday, 2 January 2026.