Pedestrian Injury Outcome as a Function of Vehicle Market Group in Victoria, Australia

Abstract

Objective: Pedestrians are among the most vulnerable road users in terms of their risk of serious injury when involved in a collision with a vehicle. In Australia, around 200 pedestrians are killed in road crashes annually and over 2,000 are seriously injured. The objective of the current study was to analyze pedestrian death and injury risk by body region across 10 light passenger and commercial vehicle market groups in Victoria, Australia.Methods: This study utilized police-reported crash data linked to insurance injury compensation claims data during the period 2001–2010 to determine whether pedestrian injury outcome is a function of colliding vehicle type. Logistic regression models were developed to measure the risk of pedestrian death or injury as a function of vehicle market group for 4 body region groupings, namely, all body regions; the head, face, or neck; the thorax; and the lower extremities (including pelvis).Results: Analysis focused on head, face, or neck injury found that pedestrians struck by small cars, people movers, large sport utility vehicles (SUVs), vans, or utility vehicles had statistically significantly higher odds of death or injury compared to large cars. When the analysis focused on thoracic injury, it was again found that pedestrians struck by large SUVs and vans had statistically significantly higher odds of death injury compared to large cars. In particular, the odds of death or thoracic injury is 74.4% higher for large SUVs compared to large cars. Analysis focused on lower extremity injury found no market group with statistically significant different odds of death or injury compared to large cars at the 5% level; however, medium cars and vans were found to have statistically significantly lower odds of death or lower extremity injury at the 10% level.Conclusions: The results suggest that the increasing popularity of vehicles such as SUVs has the potential to lead to an increase in the level of pedestrian road trauma. With the general trend toward the use of larger vehicles, the results provide validation of the importance of improved vehicle design and the incorporation of new pedestrian safety features.