Transcript The challenges for rural & remote road safety: nothing new really but what can we do about them? Presentation by Prof Mary Sheehan Sydney,

The challenges for rural & remote
road safety: nothing new really but
what can we do about them?
Presentation by Prof Mary Sheehan
Sydney, 10 August 2012
Australian College of Road Safety
Overview
1. Context
2. Comparison of fatal and non-fatal
crashes
3. Alcohol
4. Recommendations
1. Context
“some evidence that road trauma trends
over the last decade have varied between
metropolitan, regional and remote areas of
Australia though more work is required to
better understand and respond to the road
safety issues affecting people in different
parts of our country”
National Road Safety Strategy 2011-2020
Australian Annual Road Fatality Rates/
100,000 Population: Australia 1990-1992
Capital Cities
Other Major Urban Areas
Rural Areas
Remote Areas
0
10
Australia’s Rural Road Safety Action Plan “Focus for the Future” 1996.
20
30
Road deaths per 100,000 population by
remoteness area, Australia, 2006.
Major cities
Inner regional
Outer regional
Remote
Very remote
0
10
20
Extracted from Figure 11. National Road Safety Strategy 2011-2020
30
40
AUSTRALIA 2006 -2010:
An estimated 700 persons killed annually in
rural and remote crashes.
Rural and remote areas (population =31%):
• 46% of the fatal crashes
• 48% of the fatalities.
USA 2010:
30,196 fatal crashes = 32,885 fatalities.
Rural areas (population =19%):
• 54% (16,292) of the fatal crashes
• 55% (18,026) of the fatalities.
NCSA Traffic Safety Fact Sheet “2010 Rural/Urban Comparison” (DOT-HS-811-637)
CARRS-Q Rural and
Remote Road Safety
Research Program
Research team: Sheehan, Siskind, Veitch,
Turner, Steinhardt, Edmonston, O’Connor,
Blackman
Program Components
The program of research involved several key
components:
• Road Safety in Rural and Remote Areas of Australia, 2005
(Austroads Publication) (Tziotis, M., Mabbott, N., Edmonston, C., Sheehan, M., &
Dwyer, J.)
• Rural and Remote Road Safety Research Project: Five year
crash and area profile of North Queensland (January 1st 1998
- December 31st 2002) (CARRS-Q, 2006);
• Recommendations from an international workshop on rural
and remote road safety - October 2007
• Rural and Remote Road Safety Study: Final Report, 2008
(Sheehan, M., Siskind, V., Turner, R., Veitch, C., O’Connor, T., Steinhardt, D., Blackman, R., Edmonston,
C., & Sticher, G., 2008)
Rural and Remote Road Safety
Research Study
All fatal and serious hospital crashes in rural and remote
North Queensland from March 2004 to June 2007.
• 732 Eligible crashes (police, hospital and coroners’
data).
• 119 Fatal crashes.
• 613 Hospitalised crashes (at least 24 hours)
• 404 Hospital patients interviewed
• 682 Roadside interviews – matched to crash sites.
ARIA +
Application
(All serious study
crashes, March 2004 –
June 2007)
Crash Cluster - Ravenshoe
THE CRASH
“The driver was drunk. It’s his car. He was giving us
girls a lift home. Another car wanted to have a race
with us and we told the driver “no”. The driver just
started to laugh and wanted to race and started
speeding up. We all started yelling at him that we
wanted to stay alive and there was a pregnant woman
in the car. We told him he should put our lives before
his but he wouldn’t listen and just drove really fast.
Then we hit a drain and the car clunked a few times
before smashing into a building. None of us had
seatbelts on except the driver.”
Contributing Circumstances to Crashespolice and interview report
Police (n=342)
Casualties (n=227)
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Behavioural
Environmental
Other
Vehicle related
Contributing Circumstance Group
Medical
Time of Day of Crash
(Fatal & hospitalisation)
45
40
35
30
% of
Crashes
25
20
15
10
5
0
0000 - 0559
0600 - 1159
1200 - 1759
Time of Day
1800 - 2359
2. Fatal and
Non-fatal Crashes
Fatal and non-fatal casualties by gender
and age group
Fatal
Non-fatal
Males
Females
Males
Females
%
%
%
%
16 - 24
23.9
34.3
30.1
23.9
25 - 34
29.1
20.0
23.9
23.2
35 - 44
17.1
17.1
19.6
14.8
45 - 54
12.0
20.0
11.5
11.5
55 - 64
9.4
5.7
9.2
15.5
65 - 74
5.1
0
2.9
7.1
≥ 75
3.4
2.9
2.9
4.5
117
35
489
155
Age (years)
Fatal and non-fatal casualties by road
user type
Road user type
Fatal %
Non-fatal* %
Total n
Car or truck driver
51.5
30.0
269
Pedestrian
6.9
4.9
42
Car or truck passenger
21.5
19.4
159
Cyclist
1.5
2.7
20
Motorcyclist
17.7
35.6
263
Motorcycle pillion
0.8
1.6
12
Quad bike rider
0
5.3
36
Quad bike pillion
0
0.4
3
130
674
804
TOTAL
*In 10 instances, non fatal, road user type was not recorded
Temporal characteristics of fatal and
non-fatal crashes
Day of week
Fatal %
Non-fatal* %
Total %
Weekday
46.2
56.3
54.6
Weekend
53.8
43.7
45.4
TOTAL
119
606
725
*In 7 cases there was insufficient information
Road conditions in fatal and
non-fatal crashes
Road condition
Fatal %
Non-fatal %
86.4
86.1
Wet
78.6
74.1
Dry
7.8
12.0
13.6
13.3
Wet
13.6
10.7
Dry
0.0
2.6
Straight
52.4
62.8
Curved
47.6
37.2
View obscured
30.1
12.9
View open
17.5
24.3
p values
Road surface
Sealed
Unsealed
Sealed/
unsealed
0.95
Wet/dry 0.10
Horizontal alignment
Straight/
obscured/
open 0.003
Road condition
Fatal %
Non-fatal %
Level
76.7
68.0
Grade
13.6
19.4
Crest
4.9
6.5
Dip
4.9
6.1
No roadway feature
87.4
80.3
T-junction
7.8
9.7
Bridge/ causeway
1.9
2.3
Crossroads
1.9
4.8
Railway crossing
1.0
1.0
0
1.9
No control
93.2
92.9
Give-way sign
4.9
4.5
Other
1.9
2.6
p values
Vertical alignment
0.41
Roadway feature
Other
Any/none 0.14
Traffic control
Any/none 0.91
Road condition
Fatal %
Non-fatal %
p values*
Absent
88.3
79.9
Present/ absent
0.08
Present
11.7
20.1
Daylight
56.2
68.3
Night
43.8
31.7
Clear
93.2
87.7
Raining
5.8
10.0
Fog
1.0
1.0
0
1.3
Contributory road conditions
Lighting conditions
Day/ night
0.036
Atmospheric conditions
Smoke/ Dust
*p
values correspond to chi-squared tests between named groups
Clear/ other
0.17
Police-reported casualties by injury
severity and protective equipment use
Protective equipment
Seatbelt
Helmet
Fatal %
Non-fatal %
Worn
47.1
66.0
Not worn
32.9
11.2
Unknown
20.0
22.8
Total
100.0
100.0
Worn
73.9
87.6
Not worn
8.7
6.8
Unknown
17.4
5.6
Total
100.0
100.0
Licence status in fatal and
non-fatal crashes
License status
Fatal %
Non-fatal %
83.7
91.0
Open
65.0
77.2
Provisional
11.6
10.3
Learner
1.6
3.4
16.3
9.0
Cancelled/ disqualified
3.9
3.4
Never held license
3.9
2.1
Other
8.5
3.4
100.0
100.0
Not licensed in Australia
1.3
3.2
Unknown/ not applicable
12.7
10.9
Licensed
Unlicensed
Australian operators
p values
Licensed/
unlicensed
0.34
Operator factors in fatal and non-fatal crashes
Road condition
Fatal %
Non-fatal %
p values
Attributed
30.7
13.7
< 0.001
Not attributed
69.3
86.3
Attributed
24.0
9.3
Not attributed
76.0
90.7
Attributed
18.7
6.6
Not attributed
81.3
93.4
Attributed
6.7
0.9
Not attributed
93.3
99.1
Alcohol
BAC > 0.05
< 0.001
Speeding related
< 0.001
Travelling over speed limit
< 0.001
Road condition
Fatal %
Non-fatal %
p values*
Attributed
16.0
11.6
< 0.001
Not attributed
84.0
88.4
Attributed
20.0
25.5
Not attributed
80.0
74.5
Attributed
14.7
13.4
Not attributed
85.3
86.6
Fatigue
Distraction/ inattention
< 0.001
Road rule violation
*p
values correspond to chi-squared tests between named groups
< 0.001
Risk ratios, with 95% confidence intervals (95% C.I.), for
a fatal outcome in serious crashes in North Queensland,
derived by modified multiple logistic analysis.
Factor
Risk ratio
95% CI
p
Alcohol involvement definite
1.71
1.15 – 2.54
0.01
Speeding
2.39
1.61 – 3.55
0.001
Speed limit 70 – 90 km/h
2.00
0.90 – 4.44
0.09
Speed limit 100, 110 km/h
3.53
1.73 – 7.22
0.001
Road rule violation
1.74
1.10 – 2.74
0.02
Curve – view open
1.31
0.91 – 1.87
0.14
Curve – view obscured
1.30
0.87 – 1.96
0.20
Fatigue attributed
1.57
0.93 – 2.65
0.09
Emergency Retrieval
Time Intervals
Notification of crash to arrival at first hospital
Meana
Medianb
IQR*
100
78.5
49-130
– figures in minutes
* Inter-quartile range
a,b
Most fatal road crash casualties appeared to have
injuries that were unsurvivable at the outset.
3. Alcohol
Alcohol
Speeding is the Key Issue but Alcohol a
Major Contributor – our findings indicate
that for the same amount of forces
alcohol means that you are physically
compromised in regard to injury outcomes
Drinking levels in hospitalised and
roadside respondents – Audit C
Drinking level
Hospital %
Roadside %
Harmful drinker
56.8
41.2
Drinker
28.6
42.0
Non-drinker
14.6
16.8
TOTAL
206
738
4. Recommendations
Top 3 safety interventions ranked in
importance by hospital patients and
road side sample
Intervention
Hospital
patients
Roadside
sample
Courtesy buses from pubs and clubs
1.5 (1)
1.6 (1)
Better roads
1.6 (2)
Clearer identification of road hazards
1.7 (3)
Overtaking lanes
1.7 (2)
Roadside test facilities
1.8 (3)
Importance rates from 1 = very important to 5 = not important at all.
Top 10 ranked in importance by hospital
patients (harmful level drinkers compared with
other hospital respondents)
Intervention
Courtesy buses from pubs and clubs
Harmful drinkers
1.5
Others
1.6
Better roads
1.7
1.6
Clearer identification of road hazards
1.7
1.7
Overtaking lanes
1.7
1.7
Road-based fatigue initiatives
2.1
1.9
Loss of license for serious offenders
1.9
1.9
Improved mobile phone range
1.7
2.0
Roadside test facilities
1.9
2.0
Policing people riding in back of utes
2.2
2.2
RBT
2.3
2.2
Importance rates from 1 = very important to 5 = not important at all.
Key areas of intervention by cornerstone
and geographical ( rural and remote)location.
National Road Safety Strategy 2011-2020
Safe Roads
Safer roads programs targeting
run-off-road and head-on crash
risk, and safety intersection
treatments.
Safe Speeds
Review of speed limits on higher
crash risk routes.
Safe Vehicles
Focus on countering run-off-road
crashes.
Safe Road Use
Improved access to graduated
licensing for disadvantaged groups.
Crash problem areas mapped to the
strategy cornerstone areas.
National Road Safety Strategy 2011-2020
Recommendations
Drink driving
•
Courtesy buses should be advocated and
schemes such as the Skipper project promoted as
local drink driving countermeasures in line with the
very high levels of community support for these
measures identified in the hospital and roadside
studies.
Recommendations
Enforcement
• Alcohol and speed enforcement programs
should target the period between 2pm and
6pm because of the high numbers of crashes
in the afternoon period throughout the rural
region.
Recommendations
Road environment
• Speed is the ‘final common pathway’ in
determining the severity of rural and remote
crashes and rural speed limits should be
reduced to 90km/hr for sealed off-highway
roads and 80km/hr for all unsealed roads as
recommended in the Austroads review.
Recommendations
Male drivers and riders
• Male drivers and riders should continue to be the
focus of interventions, given their very high
representation among rural and remote road crash
fatalities and serious injuries.
• The group of males aged between 30 and 50 years
comprised the largest number of casualties and also
must be targeted for change if there is to be a
meaningful improvement in rural and remote road
safety.
Recommendation - -1996 rural and
remote road safety action plan
Public Education Programs
•
Localize content of generic mass
media campaigns with special
attention to alcohol, fatigue and
failure to wear seat belts
AFTER THE CRASH
• “When we crashed other people had seen it and came
over and growled at us for getting in the car with the
driver. They also hit the driver for being so stupid and
putting us all in danger. All five of us have ended up in
hospital. We sent my cousin in the ambulance first
because she was pregnant. After the crash the driver
told his family that he wanted to die. But he was also
like...not really caring about us. Then my cousins were
hitting him and he was saying sorry”.
Questions?
[email protected]
Mark your Diaries!
International Council on Alcohol, Drugs and
Traffic Safety Conference (2013)
25-28 August 2013, Brisbane
http://t2013.com
CRICOS No. 00213J