SERIOUS INJURY DUE TO ROAD CRASHES, AUSTRALIA, JULY 1999 TO JUNE 2002

The purpose of this publication is to monitor the numbers of persons seriously injured due to road crashes in Australia and the types of injuries sustained. A 'road crash' is defined as a crash involving a road vehicle on a public road. 'Road vehicles' include motor vehicles, bicycles and trams. 'Serious injury' is defined as an injury which results in the person being admitted to hospital, spending at least one night in a hospital bed and subsequently recovering (i.e. deaths are excluded). As a road crash can lead to a person being admitted to the same hospital on multiple occasions and even admitted to a number of different hospitals, a method of estimation was utilised in order to calculate the number of people injured rather than the number of admissions. This report is presented in two sections. Section One presents crash-related trends and focuses on mode of transport, road user group, age and gender. Section Two presents trends in the types of principal injury sustained in road crashes. 'Principal injury' is the principal diagnosis recorded by the hospital as chiefly responsible for occasioning the patient's treatment in hospital. The principal diagnosis has been shown in research studies in Australia and overseas to be a good predictor of the probability of death for hospitalised patients.

• Corporate Authors:

  Australian Transport Safety Bureau

  P.O. Box 967, Civic Square
  Canberra ACT 2608,   Australia 
• Publication Date: 2003

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Figures; Tables;
• Pagination: 28 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Age; Bicycles; Diagnosis; Diseases and medical conditions; Gender; Highway safety; Hospitals; Injuries; Injury severity; Injury types; Motor vehicles; Traffic crashes; Trend (Statistics); Trolley cars
• Geographic Terms: Australia
• Subject Areas: Highways; Public Transportation; Safety and Human Factors; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00964116
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Oct 8 2003 12:00AM