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WA’s Road Safety Commissioner has spoken out after five people lost their lives in the last 24 hours in separate car accidents, urging motorists to take more care at the start of the school holidays.
On Friday morning, a 51-year-old man died after being struck by a vehicle in Mundaring, shortly after a 40-year-old driver was killed when their sedan vehicle and a Mack truck towing three trailers collided in Mariginiup.
Mariginiup crash involving sedan and a truck. July 4, 2025.Credit: 9 News Perth
A third incident involved a car which collided with a tree and caught alight in Serpentine, followed by the death of a 64-year-old woman who was the passenger in a Hyundai Kona that also struck a tree in Alfred Cove.
The fifth crash occurred in Australind when a 70-year-old man was on the back of a motorcycle when he collided with a tow truck on the Forrest Highway on Thursday afternoon. The motorcycle rider died at the scene as a result of his injuries.
“That’s five families grieving, five groups of friends, loved ones, work colleagues, all dealing with loss, all preventable deaths,” Adrian Warner said.
“It’s a reminder to everybody at the start of school holidays that we just need to take more care.”
WA Road Safety Commissioner Adrian Warner.
Warner said it was “incredibly frustrating” to see the road toll climbing and said he hoped that the shock of five road deaths in 24 hours “might get a few people changing their behaviour”.
“If you look over the last few years, 15 fatalities on average in July. We’ve had five in one day,” he said.
“Sad as it is, and tragic as it is, this can be a wake-up call.
“It might be the prompt for people to just stop and think a bit more about the risks and their choices when they get behind the wheel of the car. That’s what we need to do. We don’t want that road toll to get higher.”
Commander Mike Peters of the Road Policing Command said factors such as speed, driving to the conditions, wearing seatbelts and not being distracted all play a big part in most road fatalities.
“I just want to reiterate speed seat belts, fatigue, alcohol and drugs and destruction remain to be over-represented in all these crashes,” he said.
“I’m not talking about the five specifically, but road deaths to this point, are over-represented with those five factors.
“The West Australian police are out in force this weekend, like they are every weekend, but because of the school holidays, we have a heightened level of enforcement and I don’t apologise for our officers in booze buses, in camera operations, in our highway patrol, being out there and enforcing the law. And I just ask the community to do your part.”
So far there have been 103 road deaths in WA in 2025, compared to 2024 where there was a total of 93.
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