Figures released by the Australian Automobile Association on Thursday showed the national road toll had grown to 1340 deaths during the year to July 31 – an increase of 2.9 percent.
But the number of pedestrians killed in road accidents during the year jumped by 27.3 percent, an additional 44 people.
The Pedestrian Council of Australia called for state governments to release more information about the cause of the spike, but also demanded speed limits be cut across capital cities to reduce risks.
Road toll figures showed an additional 38 people were killed on Australian roads during the last 12 months, with significant increases in Tasmania (up 41 percent), the ACT (14 percent), and Western Australia (12 percent).
Only the Northern Territory and South Australia recorded falls in road deaths, at 31 percent and nine percent respectively.
The figures represented the worst road toll recorded since 2010 when 1395 people died in road accidents, and showed Australia was failing to meet its goal to halve the road toll by 2030, association managing director Michael Bradley said.
"The National Road Safety Strategy is falling well short of its targets," he said.
"Governments must look closely at their road trauma data to find out why, then take corrective action to save lives."
Pedestrians represented 205 of the road deaths during the past year, with the steepest rises in Western Australia (31 deaths) and Queensland (37 deaths).
"We could reduce the pedestrian death toll dramatically if we embraced 30kmh in areas of high pedestrian activity," Pedestrian Council chief exectutive Harold Scruby told AAP.
"We should make all capital cities 30kmh zones tomorrow, like New Zealand, like Paris, like London."
