An in-depth study of rural road crashes in South Australia.

An intensive on scene study of crashes on rural roads outside of towns was carried out from June 1986 to July 1987 in an area of roughly 100 kilometres radius around Adelaide, South Australia. A two man team comprising a social scientist and an engineer gathered information by detailed examination of the scene of each crash and the vehicles involved, and by interviewing the participants in, and witnesses of, the crash. A plane table survey was conducted at each accident site and plans were produced using the survey data, aerial photographs and a computer aided drawing package. The team was notified of crashes through the regional centres of the St John ambulance service. A total of 80 crashes were investigated. This was a 14 per cent sample of the 570 calls to crashes. Fifty six crashes involved loss of directional control. The loss of directional control was due to various combinations of driver, vehicle and environmental factors. The drivers and riders involved in the crashes were predominantly young, (less than 30 years), male, unmarried, in a blue collar occupation, with a limited secondary school education. Almost half of male drivers were not wearing seat belts at the time of the crash. About 15 per cent of drivers and riders had a bac over the legallimit of 0.08 G/100 ml. Compared with urban crashes, these crashes resulted in more frequent and more severe injury. Recommendations were made regarding measures to increase seat belt wearing rates, and to increase random breath testing inrural areas (a)./. control was due to various combinations of driver, vehicle and environmental factors. The drivers and riders involved in the crashes were predominantly young (less that 30 years), male, unmarried, in a blue collar occupation, with a limited secondary school education. almost half of male drivers were not wearing seat belts at the time of the crash. About 15% of drivers and riders had a BAC over the legal limit of 0.08 g/100 ml. Compared with urban crashes resulted in more frequent and more severe injury. Recommendations were made regarding to increase seat belt wearing rates, and to increase random breath testing in rural areas.