Road trauma: who should be counted?

Abstract

Fatalities associated with the use of road vehicles, as reported in two separate data series, are compared. The customarily used collection, Road Traffic Accidents Including Casualties, underreported the actual total of road trauma deaths in Australia for the decade 1965 to 1974 by almost 2000 cases (5.8%). Of this total, approximately half were attributable to duration of survival exceeding 30 days; the remainder could be accounted for by a quirk of definition which excluded "off-road" accidents (in car parks, domestic and farm premises, factories and shopping centres). Cases excluded increased from 1.7% in 1965 to 8.4% in 1974. In the interests of accurate countermeasure evaluation, some revisions are recommended.