A significant proportion of personal injury road accidents involve at least one vehicle reported to have skidded. Recent results indicate that roughly fifteen out of every hundred vehicles involved in injury road accidents are reported to have skidded. The STATS19 accident report form does not record at what stage of the accident the skid occurred, or if it was a causative factor, but any vehicle in a skid is effectively out of control and this is an undesirable condition. Skidding can occur under a range of circumstances but commonly happens when moving vehicles brake suddenly, change direction sharply or corner at excessive speed. In 1990, there were 455, 234 vehicles involved in injury road accidents, and of these, 67,813 were known to have skidded. The total number of vehicle user casualties recorded for vehicles that skidded was 64,068, of which 1,435 persons were killed, 13,625 were seriously injured and 49,008 were slightly injured. In the remaining vehicles 2,088 persons were killed, 31,150 persons seriously injured and 183,605 persons slightly injured. The 15 per cent of vehicles that skidded produced 41 per cent of all vehicle user deaths, 30 per cent of serious injuries and 21 per cent of slight injuries. This illustrates that the rate of injury, serious injury and death is much greater in vehicles that skidded than in others, although it is probable that this association is an indirect one, with the risk of injury rising with vehicle speed, and, in turn, vehicles travelling at greater speed more likely to skid than others.
Abstract