aus road accidents in austraLia Jim

The annual numbers of road deaths in Australia 1950-2007 are shown in Figure 11.. Fatal crash trends since 1950 fall into four distinct phases. In the first phase covering the 1950s and 1960s, national fatality levels steadily increased to reach a peak of almost 4,000 deaths in 1970. The second phase covered the 1970s and saw fatality numbers remain at nearpeak levels of around 3,500 throughout this decade. In the third phase which stretched from around 1980 to the mid 1990s, fatalities rapidly declined to fall below 2,000 by 1993 with the steepest decline from 1989 to 1993, corresponding to a period of major economic recession in Australia. The final phase which includes the most recent ten years, has been characterised by a marked slowing down in safety improvements and since 2003, a near stagnation at a level just exceeding 1,500 deaths. However absolute measures of the road toll tell only part of the story. Table 11 shows the changes in the absolute numbers of road deaths and in the per population and per distance death rates over the most recent ten-year period. Considering the most recent ten years 1998-2007, the fall in absolute death numbers averaged out at just below a one percent decline annually. In contrast, the decline in the per population death rate has averaged out at almost two percent annually, with the average annual decline in