Five deaths in past 48 hours push WA’s road toll to grim record high

Western Australia is on track to record its worst road toll in a decade, with five deaths recorded in the past 48 hours.

The horror weekend has pushed the state to a grim milestone, with the road toll now sitting at 186 deaths so far this year, above the 184 fatalities recorded for all of 2025.

Three young people were killed on Friday morning when their Ford Falcon collided with trees near the Wheatbelt town of Narrogin, 192 kilometres south-east of Perth.

The shire’s president, Leigh Ballard, described the deaths of the 21-year-old man, 22-year-old woman and 23-year-old man as a “terrible tragedy for the town.”

On Friday evening, two motorcycles collided on Mandurah Road in Dudley Park.

The 35-year-old male rider of a Kawasaki bike died at the scene, while the rider of a Triumph motorcycle sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

The fifth death was a 41-year-old man, who was behind the wheel of a Toyota Landcruiser on the Donnybrook-Boyup Brook Road when it hit a tree.

‘Heartbreaking’ milestone

Julie Freeman, the opposition spokesperson for road safety, said the deaths should ring “alarm bells” in government.

“Today is a heartbreaking milestone that no Western Australian wanted to see,” Ms Freeman said.

“There is a great paradox: our cars are getting safer, our penalties are getting tougher … and yet the road toll keeps going up, and I think there needs to be a concerted effort into investigating why that is.”

While improvements on main regional roads have had an impact, Ms Freeman said these needed to be rolled out more extensively.

“What is being neglected is the 8,000-kilometre network of the local government roads; those roads also need these same treatments,” she said.

The state government is investing $3.6 billion in regional roads over the next four years, a spokesperson said.

“The Regional Road Safety Program, which, since launching in 2020, has invested around $1 billion to deliver safety treatments to 10,000km of regional roads, including nearly 700km of local roads,” the spokesperson said.

“The Cook Labor government has committed $125 million over five years to expand the Regional Road Safety Program to local roads.”

Government minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said more than a billion dollars has been spent on road safety, and drivers must change their behaviour.

“It has been a terrible few days on the roads, and there are some very traumatised and grieving families who have lost young people in their families,” she said.

“We have spent a billion dollars over the past 10 years making our roads safer, AI cameras changing behaviours, education programs; we will continue supporting the community.”

There is significantly higher traffic on country roads across southern WA, with harvest underway, and roads are only expected to get busier as the summer holidays approach.