The NRMA will fund new research into why ACT drivers are more likely to die on NSW roads than inside the territory, as part of nearly $1 million in funding by the group into road safety.
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The money from the NRMA ACT Road Safety Trust may lead to new talks on increasing police patrols on country roads and cross-border awareness campaigns.
Trust chairman Don Aitkin said the ACT was a "motorist's paradise" and drivers were just not used to the long "boring" highways and unpredictable gravel roads when they ventured out of the capital.
The latest figures available were released by ARRB Group last year. They show fatal crashes involving ACT drivers were three to five times more likely to occur in NSW than in the ACT, based on the 2006 to 2010 period.
"All our roads are good in the ACT, they are well engineered, they are well maintained,'' Professor Aitkin said. ''You can't complain about our road system, it's excellent."
He said when Canberra drivers left the territory they struggle to deal with new hazards.
"You might find you're driving too fast and, without disrespect, it's a boring road, you might find yourself fatigued. We are just not used to it," he said.
Grant recipient, the road safety officer at Yass Valley Council, Melissa Weller, said crashes in rural areas were often about motorists not being sensitive to changing conditions and the variation in gravel roads.
Her newly funded research into country road crashes is expected to delve deeper into the figures and look to a combination of "education backed by enforcement".
"I'll be working closely with our local highway patrol,'' Ms Weller said. ''We will be talking about ways where patrols may be modified to include more rural areas.''
The funding round will also involve more money for research into driver fatigue, Kidsafe ACT's road safety program, a cyclist awareness study and ACT Health's program aimed at reducing alcohol-related crashes by young people.
