International road death rates allow Australia's road safety performance to be compared with other OECD nations while taking into account the differing levels of population (a measure of the public health risk associated with road trauma), motorisation and distances travelled (measures of the risk associated with road travel). Among OECD nations, Australia has the 11th lowest rate in road deaths per 100,000 population; the 9th lowest deaths per 10,000 registered vehicles and the 7th lowest rate in road deaths per 100 million vehicle kilometres travelled. While these rates, and rankings, change every year, some countries have consistently displayed better safety records than Australia. The NRMA-ACT Road Safety Fellowship allowed the author to travel to Sweden, UK, and Denmark to examine the policies and measures in these countries in an attempt to understand the reasons behind their good performance. (Author/publisher)
Abstract