Road toll (Australia and New Zealand)

Road toll is the term used in New Zealand and Australia for the number of deaths caused annually by road accidents.

Road toll in Australia, 1983 to 2008
Road toll in New Zealand, 1951 to 2008

New Zealand

New Zealand reports a daily, monthly, quarterly and annual nationwide road toll,[1] plus special period figures for a number of holiday periods:[2]

  • Christmas – New Year : between 4pm on 24 December (22 or 23 December if 24 December falls on a weekend) and 6am on 3 January (4 or 5 January if 1 and/or 2 January fall on a weekend or 2 January falls on a Friday).
  • Easter — from 4pm on the day before Good Friday and 6am the following Tuesday.
  • Queen's Birthday — from 4pm on the Friday before the first Monday in June to 6am the following Tuesday.
  • Labour Day|Labour Weekend — from 4pm on the Friday before the last Monday in October to 6am the following Tuesday.

The road toll includes deaths which occur within 7 days of a road accident as a result of injuries received in the accident. Deaths of pedestrians and cyclists are included, but deaths from vehicular accidents not on legal roads (e.g. on farms) are excluded.

The New Zealand road toll has exhibited a downward trend since the late 1980s through to 2010, which was attributed to a number of factors:

  • A reduction in drink driving, due to public education and strict policing.
  • Improvements in vehicle safety.
  • An increase in the wearing of seat belts due to public education
  • Hazard mitigation works on dangerous stretches of road.
  • Reduction of speed limits in some accident blackspots and areas frequented by vulnerable road users.

Recent road toll figures

Road toll statistics are available from as far back as 1921, when records began.[3] Here are some figures from the last few years (dashes indicate figures not published or unavailable).

New Zealand Road Deaths and reported injury casualties 1990-2016
YearRoad deathsFatal crashesNo. of injuries
2012308-12,122
2013253-11,781
2014293-11,219
2015319-12,270
201632728512,456
2017380344-

Deaths per capita

Road deaths and injuries per capita since 2000.[3]

YearPopulation (000)Vehicles (000)No. of fatalitiesPer 100,000 populationPer 10,000 vehiclesNo. of injuriesPer 100,000 populationPer 10,000 vehicles
20003830.82601.746212.11.81096228642.1
20013850.12633.245511.81.71236832147.0
20023939.12709.540510.31.51391835351.4
20034009.22801.046111.51.61437235951.3
20044060.92920.743510.71.51389034247.6
20054098.33030.44059.91.31445135347.7
20064139.53124.33939.51.31517436748.6
20074228.33189.142110.01.31601337950.2
20084268.63247.83668.61.11517435646.7
20094315.83220.33848.91.21454133745.2
20104367.83230.63758.61.21403132143.4
20114405.33233.62846.40.91257428538.9
20124433.03250.13086.90.91212227337.3
20134471.13304.72535.70.81178126435.6
20144509.93398.12936.50.91121924933.0
20154596.73514.83196.90.91227026734.9
20164693.03656.33277.00.91245626534.1

By types of road user

A break down of the types of road users involved in the road death toll since 2010.[3]

YearDriversPassengersMotor CyclistsCyclistsPedestriansOtherTotal
Highest:307(1987)250 (1973)146(1988)41 (1957)157 (1973)--
Lowest:49 (1952)49 (2013)28 (2003)5(2016)25 (2015/2016)
2010180985010362375
201115061339310284
201213582508330308
201312549398302253
2014127704310430293
201515775546252319
201616378525254327

By age

The following table gives the number of road toll deaths by age group from 2010. The total killed includes unknown aged fatalities.[3]

Year0–14 years15–24 years25–39 years40–59 years60+ yearsTOTAL
201018113768385375
20111182467965284
20121462687884308
2013664417664253
20141361666981293
2015884737974319
20161782649371327

By region

Local Body boundary changes mean that records have been kept from 1980 onwards. In November 2010, the Auckland Super City was established. The figures have been altered for Auckland and other regions to allow for this development.[3]

REGIONLowest TotalHighest Total20122013201420152016
Northland 7 (2011)54 (1989)1821182327
Auckland 36 (2014)197 (1987)4148365246
Waikato 33 (2013)141 (1991)6533486979
Bay of Plenty 18 (2013)70 (1987)2318302931
Gisborne / Hawke's Bay 10 (2013)64 (1986)3110191516
Taranaki 7 (2013)45 (1991)17711812
Manawatu/Wanganui 15 (2013)81 (1987)2915342816
Wellington 10 (2015)71 (1987)1118121016
Nelson / Marlborough 5 (2015)27 (1984)997510
West Coast 3 (1996)18 (2001)79974
Canterbury 32 (2009)96 (1989)3349384734
Otago 11 (2009)43 (1988)1714191820
Southland 2 (2013)25 (1984)7212816

Tourist road toll

Overseas licence holders are involved in just over 6 percent of fatal and injury crashes.[4] In 2016 overseas drivers (those with an overseas drivers licence) were involved in 24 fatal traffic crashes, 114 serious injury crashes and 506 minor injury crashes. In comparison, in total in New Zealand in 2016, there were 286 fatal crashes, 2,099 serious injury crashes and 7,583 minor injury crashes.[5] Over the five years from 2012-2016, 6.2 percent of fatal and injury crashes involved an overseas driver. Over the same period, 4.1 percent of all drivers involved in crashes were overseas drivers.

Australia

In Australia the road toll is reported at a state level. Similar to New Zealand, Australia also reports national figures for special holidays, though usually only for the Christmas and Easter holiday periods.

In 2010, 1367 people lost their lives in road traffic crashes in Australia.[6] While strategies to reduce road toll, including legislation, improvements to vehicle's which help to make them safer, and educational programs have been developed by the national government, under the 1992 Road Safety Strategy, it is up to the local governments to adopt and enforce these policies.[7] The state of Victoria has implemented several initiatives such as speed camera, random alcohol breath tests, and an integrated state trauma system, which have successfully reduced the number of deaths caused by road traffic crashes.[8]

Random breath testing ("RBT"), utilized throughout Australia, differs from the sobriety check-points commonly used in other countries. In Australia, random breath testing is accomplished by setting up a highly visible road block, wherein all drivers passing through are asked to take an alcohol breath test, regardless of whether there is any cause to believe the driver has been drinking.[9] RBT was shown to reduce alcohol related road toll by 8–71% in fourteen different studies reviewed by Dr. Corinne Peek-Asa.[10] Requiring motorists and passengers to wear seat belts appears to have reduced the road toll in Australia.[11]

See also

References

  1. "Road crash statistics". Ministry of Transport, New Zealand.
  2. "Holiday road crash statistics". Ministry of Transport, New Zealand.
  3. "Historical Road crash statistics". Ministry of Transport, New Zealand.
  4. Overseas drivers in crashes
  5. NZ Transport Overseas Driver Fatalities (Page 3 of PDF)
  6. "Accidents Injuries and Fatalities: Transport Related Deaths". 1301.0 – Year Book Australia (2012). Australian Bureau of Statistics. 24 May 2012. Retrieved 21 July 2014.
  7. "Vehicle Collisions in Australia". NSW Compensation Lawyers. Retrieved 21 July 2014.
  8. Atkin, C; Freedman, I; Rosenfeld, J; Fitzgerald, M; Kossmann, T (November 2005). "The evolution of an integrated state trauma system in Victoria, Australia". Injury. 36 (11): 1277–87. doi:10.1016/j.injury.2005.05.011. PMID 16214472.
  9. Homel, R (1990). "Random Breath Testing and Random Stopping Programs in Australia" (PDF). In Wilson, R.J.; Mann, R.E. (eds.). Drinking and Driving: Advances in Research and Prevention. Guilford Press. ISBN 978-0898621709.
  10. Peek-Asa, C (January 1999). "The Effect of Random Alcohol Screening in Reducing Motor Vehicle Crash Injuries". American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 16 (1): 57–67. doi:10.1016/S0749-3797(98)00116-0.
  11. Bhattacharyya, M; Layton, A (1979). "Effectiveness of Seat Belt Legislation on the Queensland Road Toll – An Australian Case Study in Intervention Analysis". Journal of the American Statistical Association. 74 (367): 596–603. doi:10.1080/01621459.1979.10481655.

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