For young people aged 12-24 years injury was the leading cause of death in 2000 and the majority of injuries were related to motor vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian injuries. The purpose of this report was to detail road injuries that occurred to 0-20 year old children in Western Australia between 1996 and 2000. In 2000 there were 61 fatalities and 575 hospitalisations of children aged 0-20 years old reported to police in W A. This represents a 10 percent decrease in fatalities and a 26percent decrease in hospitalisations since 1999. Females were injured more often than males and were injured more often as drivers or passengers than males. Males had more injuries than females as motorcyclists, cyclists, pedestrians, skateboard riders and trail-bike riders. Males aged 12 years or less had more injuries than females. Females aged 13-20 years had more injuries than males. For children aged 15 years old or less, passengers and pedestrians had the highest number of fatalities. Recommendations are that this report should be used as baseline information for the evaluation of the effectiveness of programs implemented in the next few years that target children aged 0-20 years. (Author/publisher)
Abstract