Victorian Accident Stats

[russellw]

As Victoria has an excellent resource in the accident statistical database, we have expanded our previous data review to encompass the period from 1987-2009 inclusive.

Part 1 looks at the high level data while Part 2 looks at the prevailing conditions and accident types.

Executive Summary

I was somewhat hoping that the 23 years of data would show some impact from the improvements that have been made in passive safety across the last three decades but the data doesn't really depict any significant changes for the better.

The situation is somewhat better for dynamic safety initiatives as there is a marked decrease (about 55%) in the total number of accidents but this does not seem to correlate with an improvement in either the death or serious injury data.

In simple terms we are having less accidents but managing to kill about the same number of people and while we are seriously injuring less people in raw number terms, the drop is only about 12% so the rate has actually increased.

The legislators will probably be pleased to note that the biggest drop in accidents has occurred in the suburbs (about halved) lending some credence to the speed camera regime but as this has not coincided with a drop in fatalities and serious injuries it should be cold comfort to them. Conversely, rural accident rates are largely unchanged in raw number terms.

Cheers
Russ

[lockieoc]

Why was 89 such a bad year followed by a steep drop off in the early 90s?
Very interesting read, its good to see that as technology improves and older vehicles with poor or no safety equipment are dying off making the majority of the vehicles on the road a lot more safer you can see that a lot more people are now surviving with only injuries compared to 10-15 years ago the may have been killed.
Yet it is still interesting to see how some statistics haven't changed at all.

Thanks for the post.

[sudszy]

Originally Posted by russellw

As Victoria has an excellent resource in the accident statistical database, we have expanded our previous data review to encompass the period from 1987-2009 inclusive.

Part 1 looks at the high level data while Part 2 looks at the prevailing conditions and accident types.

Executive Summary

I was somewhat hoping that the 23 years of data would show some impact from the improvements that have been made in passive safety across the last three decades but the data doesn't really depict any significant changes for the better.

The situation is somewhat better for dynamic safety initiatives as there is a marked decrease (about 55%) in the total number of accidents but this does not seem to correlate with an improvement in either the death or serious injury data.

In simple terms we are having less accidents but managing to kill about the same number of people and while we are seriously injuring less people in raw number terms, the drop is only about 12% so the rate has actually increased.

The legislators will probably be pleased to note that the biggest drop in accidents has occurred in the suburbs (about halved) lending some credence to the speed camera regime but as this has not coincided with a drop in fatalities and serious injuries it should be cold comfort to them. Conversely, rural accident rates are largely unchanged in raw number terms.

Cheers
Russ

Firstly thanks for putting the graphs all together.

I am somewhat mystified by your interpretation that a graph displaying data showing the number of accidents etc as being constant from 1987-2009 doesnt represent an improvement?

In the same time the population has increased by over 25%, consequently if the line on the graph is flat that represents a real drop of 25% over the 23 year period, any line actually trending downwards represents a greater than 25% change.

Perhaps that will change your interpretation of how effective certain measures are.

Personally I think many of the conclusions you draw from the data are flawed, but anticipate this thread is not for the purpose of debating these ideas.

Likewise, I think that you are better off just supplying the information and leaving people to make their own decisions about what the data shows, or perhaps to start another thread where you can raise issues relating to it.

[russellw]

Originally Posted by sudszy

Firstly thanks for putting the graphs all together.

I am somewhat mystified by your interpretation that a graph displaying data showing the number of accidents etc as being constant from 1987-2009 doesnt represent an improvement?

In the same time the population has increased by over 25%, consequently if the line on the graph is flat that represents a real drop of 25% over the 23 year period, any line actually trending downwards represents a greater than 25% change.

Perhaps that will change your interpretation of how effective certain measures are.

Personally I think many of the conclusions you draw from the data are flawed, but anticipate this thread is not for the purpose of debating these ideas.

I didn't state that the number of accidents has remained constant. What I have actually stated is that the number of accidents has reduced by better than 55% in the 23 year time period but a similar reduction has not been seen in the statistics for either fatalities or serious injuries.

The Victorian population has actually grown by 60% since 1987 but the number of kilometres travelled per annum has only increased by a little over 30% so I am not arguing that there has been no improvement, rather I am questioning why it is inconsistent in application particularly with reference to serious injuries.

The issue I have is put quite simply thus:

If we acknowledge that fatalities and serious injury are a side effect of accidents AND if we accept that the number of accidents has decreased by 55% AND we can see that fatalities have reduced in real terms then WHY isn't that reduction reflected in the rate of serious injuries?

My contention is that we haven't seen that effect simply because the reduction in the number of accidents is predominantly in the suburban areas where the opportunity for high severity impact is less than it is in rural areas. As a supposition it fits the facts but there are no doubt equally plausible other explanations that I may discover as I narrow down the data in my research.

Originally Posted by sudszy

Likewise, I think that you are better off just supplying the information and leaving people to make their own decisions about what the data shows, or perhaps to start another thread where you can raise issues relating to it.

The raw data is available for anyone to research but the purpose of writing an article (somewhat surprisingly) is to set forth a point of view - whether others agree with it or not is entirely up to them which is why we have this thread to discuss those points of view but to simply present the figures is a pointless exercise from my perspective.


Cheers
Russ

[sudszy]

Originally Posted by russellw

The Victorian population has actually grown by 60% since 1987 but the number of kilometres travelled per annum has only increased by a little over 30%

You might want to check your numbers again, population in 1987 was ~4.2mill and 2009 ~5.5 mil, don’t know how you get 60% increase from that. The number of km travelled per annum sounds about right, but where did you get your stat on that?

This is what you said,

Originally Posted by russellw

I was somewhat hoping that the 23 years of data would show some impact from the improvements that have been made in passive safety across the last three decades but the data doesn't really depict any significant changes for the better.

How does a reduction in at least every type of incidence including fatalities(that you have presented anyway) by at least 25% not represent a significant change for the better

Originally Posted by russellw

I didn't state that the number of accidents has remained constant. What I have actually stated is that the number of accidents has reduced by better than 55% in the 23 year time period but a similar reduction has not been seen in the statistics for either fatalities or serious injuries.

A reasonable fact to put forward and discuss, but it doesn’t support your statement about no significant change.

In fact the number of fatalities in 1987 was 705 and in 2009 was at 290, that’s a reduction of 58%, and factoring in population increase, represents 67% reduction in fatalities per head of population.

[LTDHO]

Thanks for the stat's russ.

[geckoGT]

Thanks for some very thought provoking stats and an excellent write up Russ. If only some of the other more vocal members regarding road safety would put as much work in I am sure the quality of these sort of threads would improve.

I have many ideas on the questions you have raised regarding the the disparity of the reduction in overall crash numbers and fatalities compared to the lack of reduction in serious injury crashes. Unfortunately I am in between night shifts at the moment so I should really be sleeping and therefore do not have time to crunch the numbers just yet. I will however throw my thoughts on the table based on my anecdotal experience and give you something to think about and see where my head is at on this subject.

Firstly there is the subject of the reduction of crashes in the urban environment which seems quite good but the seemingly poor reduction in crash numbers in the rural environment. I think this is from a number of factors including better crash avoidance systems on cars, better road design, the introduction of speed cameras and better driver training. The simple fact is that we are having less crashes per road user or per km driven. As much as I hate to say it, the stats seem to show a reduction in the number of crashes across most crash types since the introduction of speed cameras in Vic in 1989, with the largest reduction over the fist 3 years. After that first three years the improvement seems to have plateaued and then in many crash types if began to increase again. So in terms of raw figures speed cameras do appear to be responsible for a reduction in the number of crashes, but do they save lives? That is a more problematic question and one that requires more research and analysis before any reliable conclusion can be made.

I think one of the elements that affects that question is when you look at the urban/rural crash numbers. We all know that speed cameras and other forms of law enforcement devices are many times more prevalent in urban environments. At the introduction of speed cameras in 1989 and over the next few years there was a reduction in crashes in the urban environment by approximately 60%, an outstanding result. It is difficult to pin that all on law enforcement but for the sake of discussion lets just assume increased law enforcement was the largest contributor to that result. However the reduction of crashes in the rural environment was only about 25%, much less than the urban environment. We all know there is no doubt that the focus of improved law enforcement is concentrated in the urban environment, a situation that seems to be confirmed by the improvement in crash numbers for each environment. A statement that I have heard and read many times is that the majority of fatal and severe injury crashes occur in the rural environment and on open highways, a statement I will attempt to get evidence of. Are we putting the law enforcement efforts in the wrong environment from a road safety perspective?

So, if we have seen such a good reduction in the number of crashes, particularly in the urban environment, what has happened to the fatality, serious injury and minor injury figures, surely they should have gone down by an equivalent margin?

The short answer to this is no they have not. The fatality rate dropped fairly consistently over the entire period of the figures shown and this is evidenced by the increase in the number of crashes per fatality graph. There seems to be no obvious reason for the multiple periods of improvement shown on that graph and the 1989 period was no more spectacular than the 1991 or 1993 periods. When I have more time I will attempt to see what else was done in those time periods that may give reason for those improvements. Interestingly the was 2 time periods of a significant in decrease in the number of crashes per fatality in 2001 and 2006, what happened those years?

Now when we compare this to the serious injury chart some surprises are apparent but a little thought sheds some light on the reasons why. We have established there has been a gradual increase in the number of crashes per fatality (positive result), but the number of serious injury crashes seems to be increasing as shown by the crashes per serious injury figure. Surely this is not right and a reduction of fatalities must also result in a reduction in the number of serious injuries. This may be a good time to define serious injury, I am not sure what definition the supplied figures used but a common one I have seen used is any injury that requires hospitalisation for more than 3 days. The raw figures show that the density of serious injury crashes has improved reasonably steadily in the 1988-1997 time period, I would suggest this is due to that significant reduction in overall crash numbers over the same time period. Then in 1997 this figure went down hill fast equalling the 1988 figure in 2001 and by 2007 it was nearly 180% worse than the best figure in 1997 and 65% worse than the starting 1988 figure. I am going to go out on a limb a suggest that the single biggest factor in this result is the introduction of devices such a airbags, seat belt pretensioners, improved structural protection etc.

So is this a bad result for road safety efforts? No not at all, in fact if you overlay the two graphs you would get an interesting result. The time period of the largest improvements for the crashes per fatality figure appears to be around 2003, yet in the same time period the crashes per serious injury worsened considerably. Believe it or not that suggests to me that result is actually an improvement, those that previously would have died are now living, albeit very banged up. I have to wonder if airbags and seat belt pre-tensioners became a lot more widespread in 2003? I know in my observation since 2004, car crashes that we would have peeled a body out of in 2004, we are taking an injured person to hospital in 2011.

As I said I wll try and get some figures later when I have time to do some research. For now I need to get some sleep.

My parting question is, what reduction in the average speed of crashes involving serious injury or fatality has occurred in that same 2003-2011 time period that we saw the reduction in fatality but increase in serious injury numbers? I think that would be a very interesting question to answer in terms of current road safety efforts.

[russellw]

Originally Posted by sudszy

You might want to check your numbers again, population in 1987 was ~4.2mill and 2009 ~5.5 mil, don’t know how you get 60% increase from that. The number of km travelled per annum sounds about right, but where did you get your stat on that?

That will teach me to reply at 1.00a.m! I was looking at the Queensland population data and not Vic. The kilometre data comes form the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Originally Posted by sudszy

How does a reduction in at least every type of incidence including fatalities (that you have presented anyway) by at least 25% not represent a significant change for the better

In fact the number of fatalities in 1987 was 705 and in 2009 was at 290, that’s a reduction of 58%, and factoring in population increase, represents 67% reduction in fatalities per head of population.

To reiterate. My argument is that the improvement in serious injury data is not at the level that would be expected given the improvements elsewhere.

If you read the other articles on the subject you will note that I have acknowledged significant improvement in fatality data across that same period of time but as this is the3 first look at serious injury data here are the comparatives using the same metrics.

Fatalities

- per 100k population from 16.75 in 1987 to 5.72 in 2008, a 65% improvement
- per 100 million kilometres from 1.68 in 1987 to 0.55 in 2008, a 67% improvement
- per 10k vehicles from 2.79 ion 1987 to 0.77 in 2008, a 72% improvement

Serious injuries

- per 100k population from 177.7 in 1987 to 113.8 in 2008, a 36% improvement
- per 100 million kilometres from 17.9 in 1987 to 11.0 in 2007, a 38% improvement
- per 10k vehicles from 29.6 in 1987 to 15.6 in 2008, a 47% improvement

.. all of which are well below the improvement seen in fatalities as I stated.

In fact, to take it a step further let's compare the same metrics for all other injuries:

- per 100k population from 344.0 in 1987 to 141.2 in 2008, a 58% improvement
- per 100 million kilometres from 34.6 in 1987 to 11.7 in 2007, a 66% improvement
- per 10k vehicles from 57.3 in 1987 to 19.6 in 2008, a 65% improvement

.. all of which align with the statistical improvements for fatalities and thus the question originally posed in the article about serious injuries remains.

Cheers
Russ

[SEZ213]

Originally Posted by geckoGT

Surely this is not right and a reduction of fatalities must also result in a reduction in the number of serious injuries.

My understanding of this is that whilst the fatalities may have reduced, due in most part I assume to increased safety features in cars, people are not getting killed, instead, however, being severely injured as a result. Personally, it stands to reason that when one decreases, the other will actually increase as a result, but I could be wrong.

I did also question what the definition of 'severe' was, it would actually be quite interesting to know. My assumption was primarily chest injuries, head trauma, broken bones, etc. While minor would be small lacerations and concussions, etc. (I could be wrong though).

Thanks for the data Russ, it's been very helpful.

[russellw]

Originally Posted by Sezzy

My understanding of this is that whilst the fatalities may have reduced, due in most part I assume to increased safety features in cars, people are not getting killed, instead, however, being severely injured as a result. Personally, it stands to reason that when one decreases, the other will actually increase as a result, but I could be wrong.

I did also question what the definition of 'severe' was, it would actually be quite interesting to know. My assumption was primarily chest injuries, head trauma, broken bones, etc. While minor would be small lacerations and concussions, etc. (I could be wrong though).

The definition used in Victoria is the one provided by the IRTAD that basically uses admission to hospital as the criteria. There are other definitions used in other States and the definition used by MUARC is based on the AIS (Abbreviated Injury Score) which is probably the best of the methods but not used by most of the people who actually collect the data as it requires a more skilled assessment than is generally available at the scene.

I considered the possibility that the additional serious injuries might otherwise have been fatalities but it is hard to reconcile those numbers when, even if we use 1987 data there were only 626 (not 707) deaths yet in 2008 there were 6,126 serious injuries. Even allowing for the 30% increase in kilometres travelled to directly translate into 30% more fatal incidents that would only total (814 less the 278 actually recorded) 536 extra serious injuries. Thus, while I believe this is certainly the case for some of the serious injury data it probably isn't enough to cover it all.

Originally Posted by geckoGT

A statement that I have heard and read many times is that the majority of fatal and severe injury crashes occur in the rural environment and on open highways, a statement I will attempt to get evidence of. Are we putting the law enforcement efforts in the wrong environment from a road safety perspective?

Thanks for the thoughtful input. I have tracked down that data set for Vic and will add it to the original article shortly.

Originally Posted by geckoGT

Now when we compare this to the serious injury chart some surprises are apparent but a little thought sheds some light on the reasons why. I am going to go out on a limb a suggest that the single biggest factor in this result is the introduction of devices such a airbags, seat belt pretensioners, improved structural protection etc.

So is this a bad result for road safety efforts? No not at all, in fact if you overlay the two graphs you would get an interesting result. The time period of the largest improvements for the crashes per fatality figure appears to be around 2003, yet in the same time period the crashes per serious injury worsened considerably. Believe it or not that suggests to me that result is actually an improvement, those that previously would have died are now living, albeit very banged up. I have to wonder if airbags and seat belt pre-tensioners became a lot more widespread in 2003? I know in my observation since 2004, car crashes that we would have peeled a body out of in 2004, we are taking an injured person to hospital in 2011.

Interesting to have the anecdotal evidence - see my comments above as to why i don't think that survivability is the only factor although i agree it is certainly one of them.

Originally Posted by geckoGT

My parting question is, what reduction in the average speed of crashes involving serious injury or fatality has occurred in that same 2003-2011 time period that we saw the reduction in fatality but increase in serious injury numbers? I think that would be a very interesting question to answer in terms of current road safety efforts.

I will have a look and see if I can construct a suitable database query to extract that data.

Cheers
Russ

[russellw]

I have added an extra chart to Part 2 that looks at the percentage of accident injury severity in non metropolitan areas and while it does support the supposition that the majority of fatal accidents occur out of the metro area (60%+) it doesn't support the view that the lack of reduction (relatively speaking) in serious injuries has been caused by a lack of enforcement activity in the rural areas as they only contribute around 38% of the total number.

What that tends to point to is that despite the 55% reduction in metropolitan accidents and a drop in the serious injury numbers for the early part of the data, they have continued to increase in their actual rate.

In raw number terms, the serious injuries for metro areas were 4,844 in 1987 (about 65% of the total) and in 2008 there were 3,921 (64%) - an overall reduction of only 19%!

Non metro serious injuries numbered 2,639 in 1987 and 2,209 in 2008 - an even smaller reduction of 16%.

Cheers
Russ

Back to the drawing board on that one.

[SEZ213]

Originally Posted by russellw

I considered the possibility that the additional serious injuries might otherwise have been fatalities but it is hard to reconcile those numbers when, even if we use 1987 data there were only 626 (not 707) deaths yet in 2008 there were 6,126 serious injuries. Even allowing for the 30% increase in kilometres travelled to directly translate into 30% more fatal incidents that would only total (814 less the 278 actually recorded) 536 extra serious injuries. Thus, while I believe this is certainly the case for some of the serious injury data it probably isn't enough to cover it all.

Can this be attributed to more people travelling in a vehicle now compared to 1987? ie Full car loads as opposed to single occupants, etc.? Or is this kind of information not readily available?

[geckoGT]

Russ I see your point but I am not sure that gives the full picture, I have a few theories in that one but I will gather some evidence before explaining. I just hope the thread remains civil and avoids the lock in the meantime.

Sezzy, very interesting theory regarding passenger numbers, very worthwhile investigating but difficult to do as I am not sure the stats exist to break the numbers down. It is however known that the majority of fatalities and serious injuries occur in the front occupant seats with the front passenger seat being the death seat. If you were to increase the occupancy rate of that seat, it stands to reason you alter the fatality and severe injury rate.

[russellw]

I have uploaded the speed zone data charts into Part 1 and made the following comment:

The data shows a significant reduction in accidents across 60 km/h zones, but some of that is offset by the increase from the newly added 50 km/h zone and the expanded 40 km/h ones from 2001 onwards as shown in the chart below. None-the-less, the drop in 60 km/h (and associated) zones is from a peak of 17,700 in 1988 to 7,733 in 2008 - a 56% drop in line with the reduction in incidents naturally.

There have also been some small increases in both 70 and 80 km/h zones but I have no real basis for defining why that is so.

The speed zones from 90 km/h upwards so no real change in either 90 or 110 km/h accidents but a solid reduction in the 100 km/h zone from 3,853 in 1987 to 2,197 in 2008 - about 43%.

Note that this is only the prevailing speed limit where the accident occurred and not the actual speed being travelled.

Cheers
Russ

[Airmon]

It would be interesting to plot these numbers vs Road Users, or even Accidents per capita (although that is fairly inaccurate as not everyone drives). I would imagine there would be more cars on the road at any one time now then in 1989, which would suggest an overall improvement.

Good data anyway Russ, thanks for sharing.

[russellw]

Originally Posted by Sezzy

Can this be attributed to more people travelling in a vehicle now compared to 1987? ie Full car loads as opposed to single occupants, etc.? Or is this kind of information not readily available?

Interesting question. We can obtain data that shows where a person was seated and already have looked at the comparison between driver and passenger statistics for deaths where the ratio of drivers to passengers has actually been increasing since the 1950's to the point where it is now (2009) 2.6 drivers killed for each passenger (it was 1.85 in 1987).

Might well be worth doing the comparison for serious injuries.

Cheers
Russ

PS: I have just done a quick take on the total serious injury ratio between driver and passengers. In 1987 it was 1.6 drivers for each passenger and in 2009 it was 2.58 so the trend is not dissimilar to that for fatalities.

[russellw]

Originally Posted by Airmon

It would be interesting to plot these numbers vs Road Users, or even Accidents per capita (although that is fairly inaccurate as not everyone drives). I would imagine there would be more cars on the road at any one time now then in 1989, which would suggest an overall improvement.

Good data anyway Russ, thanks for sharing.

We did both only recently (for fatalities) - per capita, per 100 million kilometres and per 10,000 vehicles. It can be found HERE

It's mostly National data but some is Victorian as well.

Cheers
Russ

[geckoGT]

Another thought is we seem to see an increase in severe injuries plus from memory an increase in the number of crashes involving bicycles, scooters and motorcycles. Considering these vehicles have a disproportionate representation in severe injuries in comparison to other road users, perhaps the increase in crashes amongst those vehicle classes goes some way to explain the lack of improvement in serious injury figures over recent times. A comparison of the rise in crashes in these classes compared to the rise in severe injury crashes may identify this trend if it exists.

[outback_ute]

Very interesting Russ. I've only had a quick look at the info, very interesting. A couple of quick thoughts - the drop in virtually all stats in the early 90's could be related to the recession. I would expect the number of km traveled dropped during those years too. You mention the increase in 70/80km/h zone accidents, those zones have been increasing in quantity over the years also. I have a few other ideas but would need to look at the info further.

[russellw]

Originally Posted by geckoGT

Another thought is we seem to see an increase in severe injuries plus from memory an increase in the number of crashes involving bicycles, scooters and motorcycles. Considering these vehicles have a disproportionate representation in severe injuries in comparison to other road users, perhaps the increase in crashes amongst those vehicle classes goes some way to explain the lack of improvement in serious injury figures over recent times. A comparison of the rise in crashes in these classes compared to the rise in severe injury crashes may identify this trend if it exists.

I've looked at the number of serious injuries for these groups and added the graphs to Part 1.

Certainly the raw number of injuries has been increasing since the mid 90's after an earlier decline and the percentage for motorcyclists is horrendous at 18% of all serious injuries while they only make up just over 3.8% of the vehicle fleet so you may well be on the right track.

In fact, motorcycle serious injuries are back above their 1987 level although the fact that there are more than twice as many registered in Victoria as there were in 1987 says that their incidence rate has improved significantly - it was 141.99 serious injuries per 10,000 motorcycles in 1987 and in 2009 it had more than halved to 64.84.

Cheers
Russ

[sudszy]

One of the claims being made by some is that the improvements we see in reductions in accidents and injuries is a result of vehicle improvements, and not a change in driving behaviour of motorists.

I may be off the mark, but could motorcycle stats be more of a yardstick on how accident rates have changed due to behaviour rather than design. I accept too, that the mindset of people that ride motorcycles regarding risk is not the same as that of car drivers.

Im not a motorcycle rider, but am I right in assuming there havent been the same levels of increase in performance, handling, braking for motorcycles and indeed rider protection that we have seen in cars in the last 23 years?

Perhaps we could even assume the same with trucks?

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by russellw

I've looked at the number of serious injuries for these groups and added the graphs to Part 1.

Certainly the raw number of injuries has been increasing since the mid 90's after an earlier decline and the percentage for motorcyclists is horrendous at 18% of all serious injuries while they only make up just over 3.8% of the vehicle fleet so you may well be on the right track.

In fact, motorcycle serious injuries are back above their 1987 level although the fact that there are more than twice as many registered in Victoria as there were in 1987 says that their incidence rate has improved significantly - it was 141.99 serious injuries per 10,000 motorcycles in 1987 and in 2009 it had more than halved to 64.84.

Cheers
Russ

Thanks Russ, very interesting.

So I assume in the injury data scooters were grouped with motorcycles? It appears that the groups of motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians account for nearly 40% of all serious injuries due to the higher risk through lack of protection in a crash.

As the use of motorcycles, scooters and bicycles is steadily increasing in the urban environment due to economical and environmental concerns, could this situation be defeating current efforts in road safety to some degree?

[russellw]

There are figures that show an increase in the involvement of scooters and mopeds in the accident data thanks, no doubt, to their increasing popularity as a means of inner city transport. I am assuming that their involvement in the actual injury data is included along with motorcycles although they might as well be included with pedestrians.

It would seem, after this analysis at least, that it is the non motor car related injuries that are responsible for the relative lack of improvement in that category.

Cheers
Russ

Cheers
Russ