Motor Vehicle Traffic Accidents Research Articles

Injuries and the Australian mortality mosaic: a comparison with the United Kingdom and New Zealand

With reference to comparative data for New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the contribution of injuries to the Australian mortality mosaic is examined against the background of the three leading causes of death; namely, heart disease, cancer and cerebrovascular disease. The data are primarily adapted from 1980 age-, sex- and cause-specific mortality tabulations published by the World Health Organization. A core concept is premature mortality, which is operationalised as an age-adjusted rate of potential years of life lost between ages one and 65. Injuries universally rank first as a cause of male premature mortality, and are second to cancer in the female case. The 15-24 age group is the predominant source of these injury losses. Irrespective of sex, Australian and New Zealand premature injury mortality rates are similar, and are almost double the British rates. Three-quarters of the rate variation between Australia and the United Kingdom are accounted for by two causes of death; motor vehicle traffic accidents and suicide.

Predicting injury risk with “New Car Assessment Program” crashworthiness ratings

The relationship between crashworthiness ratings produced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA's) New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) and the risk of incapacitating injury or death for drivers who are involved in single-car, fixed-object, frontal collisions was examined. The results are based on 6,405 such crashes from the Motor Vehicle Traffic Accident file of the Texas Department of Highways and Public Transportation. The risk of injury was modeled using logistic regression taking into account the NCAP test results for each individual model of car and the intervening effects of car mass, age of the driver, restraint use, and crash severity. Three measures of anthropometric dummy response, Head Injury Criterion (HIC), Chest Deceleration (CD), and femur load were used to indicate vehicle crash test performance. The results show that there is a significant relationship between the results of the NCAP tests and the risk of serious injury or death in actual single-car frontal accidents. In terms of overall injury, chest deceleration was a better predictor than the Head Injury Criterion. For restrained drivers, crash severity, driver age, and chest deceleration were significant parameters for predicting risk of serious injury or death; the risk of injury decreased as chest deceleration decreased. The results were similar for unrestrained drivers although vehicle mass and femur load were also significant factors in the model. The risk of overall injury decreased as chest deceleration decreased but appeared to decrease as femur load increased.

Motor Vehicle Traffic Accident Mortality in Canada, 1921-1984

The analysis of motor vehicle traffic accident mortality through the use of cross-sectional and secular death rates indicates that motor vehicle traffic accident death rates increased over all age and sex groups from 1921 to 1970. Each generation, defined as a birth cohort, experienced successively higher motor vehicle traffic accident mortality rates until the 1970s. The most striking increase occurred among youths 15-24 years of age. Motor vehicle traffic accidents were responsible for 518,488 hospital days in Canadian hospitals in 1981-82. Approximately 47% of the days involved youths below the age of 25. Among youths in the 15-24 age group, about 30% of the hospital separations attributable to motor vehicle traffic accidents involved head injuries. Between 1970 and 1984, motor vehicle traffic accident mortality rates declined in all age groups. The possible reasons for the decline and the current pattern of motor vehicle traffic accident mortality are discussed in terms of the implications for hospital utilization and the prevalence of disability.

Proximity to hospital and mortality from motor vehicle traffic accidents

Policy in England and Wales has encouraged the concentration of hospital accident and emergency facilities into large units with substantial catchment areas. This means that many rural areas are considerable distances from the nearest hospital providing such services. Analysis of data on mortality from motor vehicle traffic accidents for males aged 15 to 24 reveals that death rates are substantially higher in rural areas than in the cities. It is shown that geographical variations in mortality rate are related to differences in the dependence on private transport, to the social composition of the population and to proximity to hospital accident and emergency facilities. This latter result suggests that policy-makers need to pay more attention to the accessibility of accident and emergency services.

Fatal Motor Vehicle Accidents Involving Australian Children

Pearn, J. H. (1978).Aust. Paediatr. J., 14, 74–77. Fatal motor vehicle accidents involving Australian children. A comparative Australian study of childhood motor vehicle traffic accident fatalities is reported. The Australian rate (0–14 year olds) is 10.33 per 100,000 population at risk; this ranks very high in the Western world. Age and sex specific rates by States are presented. Data on two particular types of fatal traffic accidents involving children (run-down accidents, and intervehicle crashes) have been compiled, and accident rates presented by State. The rank order by State differs for these two types of fatal accident; interpretation of such ranked data suggests where specific safety campaigns might be expected to produce most efficient results in the continuing attempts to reduce child trauma.