Road Accident Statistics updated

[russellw]

We have updated the road traffic accident statistics for the year ended 2010, having last visited these at the end of 2007.

By way of an executive summary, here are the key points.

Road Users (link)

1. The fatality rate per 100 million kilometres continues to decrease and is currently at 0.6

2. The Northern Territory continues to lag behind the other States by a significant margin.

3. Road deaths per 100,000 of population have also declined and is currently at just under 6.0 from a 1979 figure over 24.

4. Pedestrian and Cyclist deaths are continuing to decline but Motorcycle deaths have actually increased both in raw numbers and as a percentage of the total and the fleet.

5. Almost twice as many passengers are killed compared to drivers which is a reversal of the historical trend where it was the other way around.

Age and Gender (link)

1. The ratio of male to female fatalities in the 17-25 years age group has dropped from 5:1 (in 2001) to 3:1 almost entirely due to a reduction in male deaths in that age group.

2. The 26-39 years age group worsened their ratio during that time and it is now higher than that for the younger group.

3. Passengers in the over 70's age group are over-represented in the fatality stakes and now represent the largest single group.

Heavy Vehicles (link)

Proof that smaller and lighter objects that have impacts with larger and heavier objects = a bad outcome for the former.

Speed Zones (link)

1. 100 km/h and 60 km/h zones account for almost 64% of all fatalities.

2. The introduction of a 130 km/h restriction in the Northern territory does not appear to have been an outstanding success.

Accident Type (link)

Time of Day / Day of Week (link)

Cheers
Russ

[phillyc]

Terrific summary of a terrible set of numbers. Thanks for your hard work Russellw.

[vztrt]

Russ is it true that suicides have been removed from this years figures??

[Scott]

Originally Posted by russellw

As the recent social trends have been away from frequent travel by road over longer distances (the average trip length has been dropping for the last 20 years), I'd be leaning toward us becoming less familiar with open roads and 100 km/h+ motoring as having an impact on these figures.

Hi Russ, some serious time put in there - thanks for sharing

When pondering the amount of crashes per zone, I had expected a comment from you suggesting that 60 & 100 zones are so heavily represented because they make up such a large portion of the available roads - other zones less so.

The 60 zone accidents as a rule would fit in well with the notion that "most accidents happen close to home" where I expect 60 zones would be most prevalent. I also subscribe to the thought that people aren't used to travelling on average roads at speeds like 100kph which is seconded by the lower score on 110kph which would more likely be dual carriageway.

In your travels, have you come across a breakdown of how many km of each zone there is in Australia? Or how many km are estimated to have been driven in them?

Would be an interesting addition to the great stats you have provided.

[russellw]

I haven't found a breakdown of the quantity of each zone but the data will no doubt be somewhere.

What I have found is a breakdown by road type which tells me that there were 355,000 km of sealed road as at the end of 2009 which only represented a little over 43% of the total road area in the country.

I'll have a bit more of a dig.

Cheers
Russ

[iCat]

nice to see an honest set of statistics on this topic. thanks for the effort gone to providing these. should be front page of the newspapers, not the rubbish we are fed to further a particular political agenda.

[aussie muscle]

2. The introduction of a 130 km/h restriction in the Northern territory does not appear to have been an outstanding success.

a shame, which is basically a final nail in the coffin for higher speed limits in any other state.

[xxx000]

Originally Posted by vztrt

Russ is it true that suicides have been removed from this years figures??

it's usually not possible to determine if a road death is due to suicide

[2011G6E]

I notice that the "Northern Territory lags behind" in figures.

I remember seeing some years back that there was a lot of puzzling accident figures from the NT...things like a single vehicle accident with 12 or sometimes more people injured. Anyone who's travelled to outback areas of the NT, especially near aboriginal settlements, will know why...you'll see old Landcruiser utes barrelling past on narrow dirt roads with four adults jammed in the front and a tray full of people.

The best news is that the road toll continues to fall year on year, even though tens of thousands of new drivers keep coming on to the road each year, with no real driver training...and by "real" I mean an organised system of defensive driving and advanced driving courses. Hell, in Finland it takes three years to get your licence and the tests you have to go through are amazing before they trust you with a car...

[russellw]

Originally Posted by aussie muscle

a shame, which is basically a final nail in the coffin for higher speed limits in any other state.

Sorry if I hadn't made the point correctly but if you read the linked article you will see that the reason it has not been a success is because the fatalities in the former unrestricted zones went UP significantly after the 130 km/h limit was introduced.

Cheers
Russ

[russellw]

The final article is now up.

Cheers
Russ

[Geez Louise]

Interesting statistics. No real surprise that more accidents occur on the weekends. That is when more traffic is on the roads isn't it? or is it due to people perhaps not concentrating as much..

[SB076]

Originally Posted by Geez Louise

Interesting statistics. No real surprise that more accidents occur on the weekends. That is when more traffic is on the roads isn't it? or is it due to people perhaps not concentrating as much..

Peak hour is when roads are at their busiest and thats during the week.

I beleve the drop in the road toll has nothing to do with speed cameras (as the government would leave you to beleive) but is due to the advances in vehicle safety (ABS, ESC, Airbags etc)