Differences between drivers injured and not injured in collisions in Victoria, Australia.

In Victoria, Australia, the law requires all road crash casualties treated in hospital have a blood sample taken for alcohol analysis. The coroner has also directed that people who are killed in motor vehicle collisions should have a blood sample taken. Therefore the state has available a body of data about the incidence of alcohol among casualties and the different characteristics of drinking and non-drinking drivers. There is no similar information about the drivers who were not injured in the same collision, however, and the overall contribution of alcohol to australian road crash statistics has not been fully documented. This paper will report that women, people aged under 26 years, pensioners and drinkers form a larger proportion of drivers killed or taken to hospital than of drivers not injured in motor vehicle crashes. As well, the driver casualty groups have a higher proportion of unlicensed drivers and people with previous traffic, drink-drive and criminal convictions than the not injured categories. It is clear that driver casualties are not representative of all drivers involved in casualty crashes and the implications of these findings in the development of appropriate countermeasures to alcohol-related crashes will be discussed. For the covering abstract of the conference see IRRD 259956.