Insurance companies could be change agents for lowering escalating wildlife vehicle collisions
But they are not
By Patrick Francis
How many wildlife vehicle collisions resulting in thousands of vehicle occupant casualties and millions of wildlife road kills each year have to happen before vehicle insurance companies make meaningful recommendations to state governments to reduce the daily carnage?
Vehicle insurance companies collision claims data has potential to make an important contribution to recognising the health impacts on humans of wildlife vehicle collisions across road-kill hotspots. Yet the Australian government’s Transport Department and state and territory Transport Departments which are collectively responsible for delivering the National and State Road Safety Strategies 2023 – 2033 and the National Road Safety Action Plan 2023 – 2025 as well as Speed Zoning Technical Guidelines, all based on Safe System principles to achieve Vision Zero 2050 road fatalities, ignore insurance company wildlife vehicle collisions claims data in their decision making processes for setting speed limits along rural roads.
Figure 1: Two vehicle insurance companies have been proactive in publishing wildlife vehicle collision claims data for many years. Across Victoria collision hotspots are consistent year on year and coincide with Wildlife Victoria wildlife collision data but Transport Victoria ignores the claims data as an input into the decision tree for rural road speeds in its Speed Zoning Technical Guidelines. Sources: AAMI, RACV, Wildlife Victoria.
Transport for NSW contends that 1 in 41 wildlife vehicle collisions results in a vehicle occupant casualty causing minor, serious injury or death. An estimated four million large wildlife species (90% kangaroos) are killed by vehicles on Australia’s road each year. Apart from wildlife vehicle collision data reported as vehicle insurance claims no Transport authority has data on vehicle occupant casualties as a result of swerving to avoid a wildlife strike and colliding with an oncoming vehicle or roadside hardware such as a tree or pole (single vehicle collisions). The only facts known are rural roads with 80 – 110km/h posted or default speed limits are responsible for the majority of annual fatal collisions, figure 2A and run-off road single vehicle collisions are responsible for a majority of these fatalities, figure 2B.
Figure 2A: Rural roads are recognised as the most dangerous for vehicle occupant fatalities they are also where wildlife vehicle collisions and runoff road collisions are most common.
Figure 2B: Single vehicle run-off road collisions are responsible for the majority of fatalities and serious injuries on regional roads. Around 40% of drivers say they would swerve to avoid striking wildlife on the road. Source: BITRE 2020
In August 2025 the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV) released its vehicle insurance claims as a result of collisions with kangaroos. “Between 2021 and June 2025, RACV Insurance received over 23,000 claims for kangaroo-related collisions, with 2024 recording the highest number of claims (5,883).” There was no mention of claims associated with other wildlife such as wombats. RACV identifies the Top 10 regions in Victoria for kangaroo collisions with all 10 in central Victoria where state government population growth policies are focused. These regions coincide with data provided by Wildlife Victoria which highlight northern peri-urban Melbourne and central Victoria are where most of its road kill reports originate.
The same pattern of wildlife vehicle collisions distribution in Victoria was reported by insurance company AAMI in June 2024. It reported 6090 claims for Victoria for 2023.
Both insurance companies stated their latest annual data was the highest number of wildlife vehicle collision on record. The number of collisions is increasing year on year.
Given there are at least five major vehicle insurance companies and three do not release annual wildlife vehicle collisions claims data it would not be unreasonable to assume at least 20,000 vehicles are damaged across Victoria and 50,000 across Australia in these collisions each year killing 98% of the animals hit and putting the drivers and passengers at risk of serious injuries even death.
Vehicle occupant casualty physical and psychological health care costs from collisions are increasing year-on-year, table 1. According to the Australian government’s ‘Reducing default speed limits outside of built-up areas
September 2025’ analysis the total human cost of a serious injury crash has increased from $335,000 in 2013 to $461,000 in 2025, while the total direct vehicle costs from a collision has increased from $13,000 to $18,000 in the same period.
This Australian government analysis puts in perspective the human and other costs associated with 1 in 41 wildlife vehicle collisions causing an occupant casualty across at least 50,000 collisions. It’s $562 million dollars in human costs in 2025 and $21 million in vehicle costs.
Table 1: The full cost to individuals and the Australian community of fatal and serious injury crashes. Source: Australian government ‘ Reducing default speed limits outside of built-up areas September 2025’.
It seems no vehicle insurance company joins the dots from wildlife vehicle collisions costs to health care cost implications and psychological damage to vehicle occupants involved in collisions. The companies seem to simply recognise the vehicle repairs as the cost behind wildlife vehicle collisions, RACV’s reported the average 2025 wildlife vehicle collision claim was $8984.
As for the implications of vehicle collisions on wildlife protection and welfare that seems to be just as irrelevant to core business for insurance companies as it is for state and territory Transport Departments who contend such issues are not part of their jurisdiction.
The best suggestions to avoid wildlife collisions both companies recommend in their latest wildlife vehicle collisions media releases are the same ones Transport Victoria, Wildlife Victoria and local governments have been making for at least 10 years yet the number of wildlife vehicle collisions is increasing year-on-year. It means none of these suggestions are effective in changing drivers behaviour when driving on Victoria’s rural and regional road network.
The Slow Down syndrome
Figure 3: Yellow wildlife warning signs are installed to invoke a slow down response by drivers, but research shows drivers are habituated to the signs and ignore the message to slow down. Photos Patrick Francis.
The key suggestion made by all insurance companies, local governments, NGOs and state transport departments is for drivers to slow down when they see the yellow wildlife warning signs. “Motorists should slow down, stay alert and scan the roadside – especially at dawn and dusk, when kangaroos are most active, ” said RACV General Manager Insurance and Roadside Bill Bloodworth (August 2025). “To avoid a collision with wildlife, slow down when you see warning signs, scan the road ahead, and use your peripheral vision to keep an eye on the edges for wildlife feeding, or about to cross,” said Leah James AAMI Motor Claims Manager (June 2024).
Transport for NSW sums up the value of static wildlife warning signs in a December 2024 publication ‘Using technology to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions’ stating “a substantial shortcoming of static signage is driver habituation and subsequent disregard to signs over time. Signs are rarely removed … contributing to an overabundance of wildlife warning signs which further minimises their effectiveness. Static signage is not endorsed as a stand-alone, effective, or long-term solution” for preventing wildlife vehicle collisions”.
Queensland’s Transport and Main Roads (TMR) is forthright about the value of yellow wildlife symbol signs for traffic calming “most drivers do not modify their behaviour in response to standard signs because they rarely see fauna and therefore do not trust or believe the sign. In addition, the widespread deployment of standard signs in areas with few fauna reinforces this perception, thereby minimising effectiveness everywhere, including in high-risk areas. Transport and Main Roads does not recommend standard signage alone as an effective, long-term solution to WVC”.
Transport Victoria’s view of value of yellow signs is ambiguous. Its views are included in VicRoads 2012 ‘Fauna Sensitive Road Design Guidelines’. It acknowledges traffic management such as yellow road signage is “…one of the cheapest forms of fauna mitigation on roads …and is the most common
method used to reduce fauna mortality on roads’. But also acknowledges signage has limitations it is “Not likely to be practical on highest speed roads or roads with high traffic volumes. Success of permanent signage in reducing roadkill and public awareness diminishes over time, particularly with local residents familiar with the signs”.
Despite constant advice about slowing down AAMI driver research found more than 40 per cent of drivers don’t pay attention to wildlife warning signs.
Griffith University road ecologist Darryl Jones who has studied wildlife warning sign effectiveness for 20 years explained the value of yellow signs for altering drivers behaviour in his book A Clouded Leopard in the Middle of the Road: “What we do know about the response of drivers to this signage can be nicely summarized in one word: “habituation.” Most of the time, drivers just don’t notice these signs—or, if they do, they don’t react in any discernible way. And crucially, they don’t slow down. The use of standard wildlife warning signs offers a textbook example of the elements that lead to habituation. The images are overly familiar and not particularly attention grabbing, and there is no apparent reason for drivers to react. Once these signs are installed, they stay in place more or less forever. Old, faded, rusty signs—often bearing signs of wear, bullet holes, and graffiti—look more like historic relics than vital alerts warning that something potentially hazardous might be about to happen. Road authorities and local councils love to erect these signs as an indication that they are “Doing Something” about road safety or because they want to demonstrate that they really do care about a particular species of interest. And while these may be worthy political aims, the fact remains that static warning signs are, at best, pointless and at worst, misleading”.
Slow down advice political dynamite
For vehicle insurance companies, state Transport departments and local governments to constantly refer to drivers slowing down beyond yellow warning signs which have not made any difference for lowering wildlife vehicle collisions on rural roads, suggests an issue bigger than vehicle occupant safety and wildlife protection is front of mind. That issue for reducing speed on low vehicle volume, council managed access and connector rural roads is likely to be public unpopularity and negative consequences for corporations and politicians advocating for curtailing driver mobility and convenience by reducing legal speed limits for an unpredictable and uncontrollable factor – wildlife on and crossing roads.
Austroads (2019) identified societal, political and institutional challenges confronting speed management including:
• strong public or stakeholder resistance to speed limit reductions often cause problems at a political level,
• getting approval at a state level can sometimes be challenging for local authorities as there may be political sensitivity issues at that level.
* a general perception that the public dislike speed limits being reduced, despite surveys indicating that many people think some speed limits are too high in some areas, particularly where there is a high concentration of vulnerable road users,
• that members of the public often have predetermined views of what a speed limit should be with a disproportionate concern for increased travel times compared to safer speeds, and
• that members of the public have a perception that speed limit reductions are intended to increase revenue through enforcement.
Just how unpopular reducing rural roads speeds is with a significant percentage of drivers was documented by Victoria’s TAC in its Road Safety Monitor 2023 Report. Drivers were asked their support or opposition for reducing narrow country road speed limit from the existing Transport Victoria Speed Zoning Technical Guidelines default 100km/h to 80km/h. For drivers who regularly travel 10km/h over the speed limit on such roads 53% were opposed and 32% supported the change. The majority of drivers who do not travel above the speed limit supported the lower speed limit, with 54% supporting and 26% opposed. The key consideration with this data is that the cohort of drivers who do not travel above the speed limit is a far greater proportion of the driving population than those who speed and are accepting of change compared to those drivers who speed. Yet it’s the vocal minority of drivers who want to speed who capture local and state government politicians attention.
A real life example of this happening occurred over 2024/25 on a Macedon Ranges shire council managed road. Residents along the approximate 3km Spencer road in a rural living zone outside the Woodend town boundary petitioned for the default 100km/h speed limit to be reduced due to increasing number of wildlife vehicle collisions as well as to protect pedestrian safety. Spencer road had become a high speed short cut from the old Calder highway to the west of the Woodend.
The Shire agreed to this and posted a 50km/h speed limit. The 50km/h signs were repeatedly vandalised and removed according to the council. Despite a petition from 30 residents for the 50km/h speed limit to be retained, Council also received a letter signed by 21 individuals (not residents of Spencer road) objecting to the lower speed limit. Councillors accepted the view of its engineering staff that Transport Victoria’s Speed Zoning Technical Guidelines 2021 prevented council adopting the 50km/h speed limit for a rural road and Spencer road was re-assigned an 80km/h speed limit. However, the Speed Zoning Technical Guidelines do allow for a speed limits of 40km/h outside built up areas in a “local street or network of local streets where pedestrian / cyclist safety or residential amenity needs to be enhanced” (Figure 5 plus Figure 7 page 23). This opportunity to implement a 40km/h speed limit was not presented to councillors for their consideration, nor was the Safe System Speeds.
Austroads 2019 Road Risk Assessment document confirms the Safe System Speeds stating “Pedestrians and cyclists should not be exposed to vehicle travel speeds of over 30 km/h”, and “the Safe System philosophy … does not require crashes to occur before acting to improve high risk locations on the road network”, and “The principles which underlie speed management in the Safe System philosophy are based on the management of kinetic energy transfer…” which applies just as much to wildlife as to humans for causing fatalities. Not surprisingly the council staff member recommending a solution to councillors failed to make these points. Instead the staffer noted “Concerns regarding driver safety, pedestrian safety, or failure to share the road appropriately fall outside of infrastructure related solutions and instead are issues of driver behaviour.”
Figure 4: Spencer road Woodend Victoria is in a rural living zone where residents are concerned about the safety for themselves and wildlife which share the road with vehicles. When 50km/h speed limit signs were installed they were vandalised. The Council recorded average speed along the road at 78km/h while the Safe System speed for a shared road is 30km/h. Council using Transport Victoria’s Speed Zoning Technical Guidelines settled on a 80km/h maximum speed limit when the road should have qualified under those Guidelines for a 40km/h limit given the threat to pedestrians and cyclists safety. Photos: Patrick Francis, Google Earth.
This ‘blame the driver’ statement contradicts the Safe System philosophy as stated in Austroads 2019 Research Report ‘Road Risk Assessment, Case Studies and Engagement Guidance for Speed Management’ (p4): “The Safe System philosophy .. acknowledges the physiological and psychological limitations of humans and places ultimate responsibility on managers of the system to accommodate human limitations”.
Furthermore Austroads 2019 states: “Effective speed management is fundamental and critical to reducing speed-related road trauma. Speed limit setting is at the core of speed management. Speed limits need to be set at a safe and appropriate level, considering the function, design and safety of the road. Infrastructure Risk Rating (IRR),… is a simple road assessment methodology designed to assess road safety risk at a network level, primarily as an input to the speed limit setting process”.
Given the Council’s traffic analysis for Spencer road showed average speed was 78km/h, then 50% of drivers are travelling above that speed making it an even higher risk road for pedestrians as well as wildlife vehicle collisions, yet wildlife road kills and speed were not mentioned by the officer.
Figure 5: Drivers who travel above the speed limit on rural and regional roads are vocal in their opposition to lowering legal speed limits and are likely to be more influential in conveying their displeasure to local government councillors and politicians. The silent majority of drivers who do not speed support lower speed limits on rural roads. Source: TAC Road Safety Monitor 2023 Report.
Even regular road casualties and fatalities directly or indirectly associated with unpredictable wildlife vehicle collisions on rural roads seem to make no difference to politicians desire to take known Safe System speed lowering actions in face of vocal opposition. If human injuries and fatalities are not sufficient incentive there is no way tens of thousands of wildlife road kills each year can make such an impression on politicians to make changes to speed zoning policies and guidelines and introduce legal speed limit in line with the Safe System Speeds through wildlife vehicle collision hot spots.
Slow down open to interpretation
The other deception behind insurance companies, state transport departments and shire council’s reliance on drivers slowing down behind yellow wildlife warning signs is the advice is so subjective in the minds of every single driver it is meaningless.
A Transport for NSW spokesperson when asked what ‘slow down’ means stated “Signage advising motorists to slow down for wildlife are advisory only. Which means that it is up to the motorist to use their own judgement when adjusting their speed below the legal limit to allow greater reaction time when responding to an unexpected wildlife”.
Once again a Transport Authority transfers responsibility for safety to the motorist rather than accepting that “The Safe System philosophy …places ultimate responsibility on managers of the system to accommodate human limitations”.
If drivers are to use judgement in deciding what speed to travel at on 80km/h, 100km/h and 110km/h roads how do the following situations apply to slowing down:
* Excessive speeders who travel 10km/h or more over the speed limit?
* Non-speeders who travel at or below the roads legal speed limit?
* Drivers of vehicles equipped with frontal protection systems (roo/bull bars) that protect vehicle from damage in event of a kangaroo collision?
* Truck drivers in charge of vehicles with different load masses?
* A motor bike rider alone or with a pillion passenger?
Apart from these factors drivers also need to know what is the stopping distance required at different speeds, figure 6, on different rural roads types such as gravel surfaces versus bitumen surfaces with different widths and in different environmental conditions – dry versus wet, to avoid a wildlife collision without swerving?
All these variables associated with drivers making judgements about what speed is safe when passing a yellow wildlife warning sign is the reason why the Safe System philosophy “…acknowledges the physiological and psychological limitations of humans” to voluntary make the speed reduction necessary to prevent a collision or at least slow to a speed less than 30km/h at point of collision.
Austroads (2019) highlights the historical legacy behind current driver behaviour and Transport Department, Shire Council intransigence when it comes to speed:
“Speed limits were initially adopted with little understanding of safety in relation to crash incidence, vehicle occupant protection and vulnerable road users. A range of limits were historically fixed according to an adopted hierarchy and roads were generally designed to maintain these operating speeds with less consideration given to the benefits of adopting lower speed limits as a means of achieving lower operating speeds on the basis of safety or infrastructure cost. These practices have resulted in a legacy that is taking considerable effort to change, mainly because the population has been living with ‘high’ speed limits not aligned with injury reduction for many decades. Given that many in the population have personal experience travelling at a high speed, it has been difficult to communicate in a credible manner the scientific evidence that population risk can be lowered through speed management.
“Drivers and riders become habituated to risk as they repeatedly perform tasks within the road system with little or no ill-consequence over a lifetime. The fact is there is very little feedback in relation to risk when using the road system”.
Figure 6: Vehicle insurance companies, Transport Departments and shire councils advice to drivers to ‘slow down’ and ‘drive to the conditions’ on rural roads within wildlife hotspots has no credibility as a solution in the Vision Zero 2050 road safety era because such advice contradicts the Safe System philosophy that “acknowledges the physiological and psychological limitations of humans” to make decisions to keep themselves and other road users safe as they have become habituated to risk. Photo Patrick Francis.
Figure 7: Despite wildlife vehicle collisions happening on all types of roads including 5 star infrastructure roads the Safe System model adopted by all State and Territory Transport Departments ignores unpredictable wildlife involvement in collisions yet recognises that drivers make mistakes so speed reduction action needs to be taken by Transport Departments and shire councils to lessen the casualty impacts of mistakes especially where the road effect zone for wildlife activity is known. Sources photos Patrick Francis
To accommodate human limitations state Transport Departments and shire councils are placing all their money and legislative power for Vision Zero 2050 on safe road infrastructure, safe vehicles, road rules/regulations, figure 7, and hope the Safe Speeds component is understood and embraced even though what slow down facing wildlife signs means is open to interpretation. When it comes to unpredictable wildlife on and crossing roads irrespective of how safe the road infrastructure has been made, how safe the vehicle engineering and technology is, collisions, casualties and fatalities will happen in direct wildlife collisions or in vehicle swerving causing head-on collisions and in run-off road hardware collisions.
The infrastructure spend is accompanied by tens of millions of dollars spent on safe driving road safety campaigns, policing road safety, legislation to support road safety associated with requirements to wear seat belts, blood alcohol limits, mobile phone use, and vehicle safety equipment such as air-bags and crumple zone.
Individual drivers are also spending on technology, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) fitted to their vehicles to reduce collision risk. Austroads opened a web site describing all the ADAS in September 2025. Asked if any of ADAS such as Forward Collision Warning, Automatic Emergency Braking, Pedestrian Cyclist and Obstacle Detection and Active Driving Assistance would assist with preventing wildlife vehicle collisions on high speed rural roads an Austroads spokesperson stated: “At this stage, no ADAS technology available in Australia has been formally validated or guaranteed to prevent wildlife collisions, particularly at higher rural road speeds or at night when detection is most difficult”.
Roo bars
To confront the increasing number of wildlife vehicle collisions on rural roads an increasing number of SUV and ute owners not prepared to slow down to a recognised safe speed passing wildlife warning signs are resorting to purchasing vehicle frontal protection systems (VFPS) often referred to as roo bars or bull bars.
Roo bars help explain the enormous gap between wildlife vehicle collision insurance claims, around 50,000 per year and the actual number of road kills estimated for kangaroo and wallabies at four million per year. In peri-urban districts it is estimated 60 – 70% of large SUVs and utes are equipped with roo bars, while virtually all trucks are equipped with them. The confidence they give drivers to ignore wildlife signs and the advice to slow down as suggested by vehicle insurance companies as a means for reducing collisions has never been researched and connected to the massive road kill number.
Figure 8: Do bull/roo bars give drivers such a sense of security on rural and regional roads that slowing down on wildlife hot spot roads is not necessary? Insurance companies and Transport Departments have not asked this question.
It would not be unreasonable to draw an association between increasing traffic, increasing numbers of roo bar fitted vehicles, increasing above the speed limit driving and increasing wildlife vehicle collisions especially across the peri-urban rural and regional road network. Vehicle insurance companies make no comments about the role for roo bars in protecting vehicles from damage in the event of a wildlife collision or how such equipment impacts premiums and no claims bonuses for rural and regional vehicle owners. More importantly they make no mention of the impact of roo bar fitted vehicles on drivers attitude to slowing down on roads with wildlife warning signs. It is not a question insurance company and road safety authorities such as Victoria’s TAC seem interested in including in driver attitude surveys despite the implications for wildlife vehicle collisions.
Do they give drivers a sense of security/safety and invincibility that negates consideration for slowing down? Vehicle insurance companies will not comment on the role of vehicle front protection systems in terms of vehicle damage protection offered or for influencing annual vehicle insurance premium.
While vehicle insurance companies and road safety organisations undertake many driver attitude surveys none ask about factors surrounding wildlife vehicle collisions. The most common driver response to questions about behaviour is preparedness to travel above the speed limit. In the Australian Road Safety Foundation’s 2023 survey of rural and regional drivers, 47% responded they drove above the speed limit as they thought it safe to do so, despite rural roads having tens of thousands of wildlife warning signs and the greatest percentage of driver, rider and pedestrian fatalities.
Figure 9: Despite rural and regional roads being adorned with wildlife warning signs suggesting drivers slow down below the legal 80, 100, 110km/h speed limit, 47% of drivers in 2024 and 39% in 2025 responded that they exceeded speed limits because they considered these roads were safe to do so. Source: Australian Road Safety Foundation Rural Road Safety Month September 2024 and September 2025.
In the 2023 TAC driver behaviour survey the percentage of drivers travelling 3km/h or more above the speed limit has reached an all-time high of 64%. The kinetic energy transfer implications of even a small speed increase on high speed rural roads in the event of a collision with kangaroo, or if the driver swerves and causes a head on collision with an oncoming vehicle or alternatively runs off the road and hits a tree or pole, are likely to be catastrophic for the vehicle occupant(s).
Figure 10: Whatever the term used for speeding – low level or high level, the TAC survey shows the percentage of drivers exceeding any speed limit has reach 64%.
Future is bleak without speed reduction
Without a change in speed limits across rural and regional roads through wildlife hotspots it is almost certain that wildlife vehicle collisions will increase with all their associated direct and indirect costs. The Australian Government’s report ‘Reducing default speed limits outside of built-up areas September 2025’ provides and insight as to what is in store for Australia’s roads. There is going to be a significant increase in kilometres travelled along rural and regional roads by all classes of vehicle table 2.
Table 2: As state governments encourage population growth in regional area towns the vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT) are predicted to increase by approximately 12 billion kilometres for passenger vehicles and 9 million kilometres for utes significantly increasing the risk of wildlife vehicle collisions, vehicle occupant casualties and wildlife road kills unless speed limits are reduced to the Safe System speeds across insurance company identified rural road wildlife hotspots. Source: Source: Australian Government Reducing default speed limits outside of built-up areas September 2025.
At the same, time years of environment policies and strategies to enhance remnant vegetation, restore vegetation and increase biodiversity across landscapes and along biolinks has boosted wildlife populations on farms in close proximity to population centres and highways. New policies and strategies encouraging more wildlife habitat restoration and protection combined with financial incentives to implement them such as the Nature Repair Market and Carbon market are further boosting wildlife populations. The combination of nation-wide wildlife habitat restoration, peri-urban farmland transition away from agriculture towards conservation, and state Transport Departments omission of wildlife as a factor in setting speed limits on rural roads will be the catalyst for an explosion in wildlife vehicle collisions, vehicle occupant casualties and cost to society. It will not be financially possible to put in place the road infrastructure needed to separate vehicles from the unpredictable wildlife behaviour across thousands of rural roads, but it is possible to use data such as that generated by vehicle insurance company wildlife vehicle collision claims and wildlife rescue NGOs to identify the road hot spots where the legal speed limits can be lowered from now inappropriate historical limits to minimise collisions and if they happen protect occupants from injury and wildlife from death.
Figure 11: Historically based rural and regional road maximum posted and default 80, 100 and 110km/h speed limits are no longer appropriate through wildlife hotspots whatever their star safety rating as wildlife populations are increasing in response to a host of state and federal land use change strategies as well as market incentives such as Nature Repair and Carbon. Photos: Patrick Francis.
