Australia and the world

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‘Over 3000 people are killed in road crashes worldwide every day – the equivalent of seven 747 jumbo jets with a full complement of passengers.’ ATSB p7

In every country of the world, road traffic injuries are a major cause of death and serious injury and the numbers are increasing. This is not just a road safety problem but also a major public health problem.

A person is killed or seriously injured on Australian roads every 22 minutes. How does this compare with other countries and what can governments and individuals do about this?

International picture
According to the World Health Organisation, road traffic injuries are:

the leading cause of death by injury worldwide – accounting for 20.3% of all deaths from injury
second only to HIV/AIDS as the leading cause of ill health and premature death for adult men aged 15-44 years
the cause of an average global death rate of 19 per 100 000 people in 2002
lowest in affluent European countries and highest in low and middle-income countries such as Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean.

What is happening in Australia?
Recently there have been around 1700 road deaths and more than 22 000 serious injuries in Australia each year. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, over 171 000 Australians have been killed in road crashes, compared with 100 000 Australians killed in all the wars of that century. That’s almost twice as many Australians dying as a result of road crashes than in all the wars in the last century combined.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics:

Road crashes were the 10th leading cause of death in Australia.
Road crashes accounted for 22% of deaths due to external causes (accidents, poisoning and violence).
Every 22 minutes, someone is killed or seriously injured on Australia’s roads.

Australia and OECD countries
Australia is a member of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This organisation has been conducting research into the road death rates of the countries that have been members since 1975.

In 2001, among the 25 OECD countries, Australia had the:

11th lowest rate in terms of deaths per 100 000 people
9th lowest rate in terms of deaths per 10 000 registered vehicles
4th lowest rate in terms of deaths per 100 million vehicle-kilometres travelled.

Within Australia, the ACT had the lowest rate of 5 deaths per 100 000 people and the NT the highest rate of 25 deaths per 100 000 people.

What is happening globally?
It is expected that the death and injury rates in high-income countries will continue to decrease by up to 30% by 2010, due to the substantial efforts these countries, including Australia, are making to improve road safety.

However, the World Health Organisation predicts an overall increase of 60% in the global rates – taking it to 2.3 million deaths worldwide, 27.4% of all deaths from injury. Over 90% of these deaths will occur in low and middle-income countries due to:

higher rates of population growth which will see more people move to the cities where they will depend more on motorised transport
more roads being built in those countries
increasing wealth such that more families can afford to buy a motor vehicle.

What can governments and people do?
The World Health Organisation has developed a plan to reduce road traffic injuries worldwide, with a special focus on low and middle-income countries.

They have developed a list of actions that involve everyone – from governments to vehicle manufacturers to individuals within their communities.

Other Important Information

For more information refer to the ATSB World Health Day publication chapters 2 - 4 which are the sources of the above information.

Other Important Information

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