Estimating road trauma in the Australian indigenous population.

This report compares the annual road death rate of both indigenous and non-indigenous Australians in three jurisdictions, which currently collect this information, and then estimates the indigenous road toll Australia-wide. Two conclusions can be drawn from the analyses in this report. First, road crashes account for a greater proportion of road deaths in the indigenous population than the non-indigenous population. Secondly, based on the Australian indigenous road death estimates, the road death rate in the indigenous population may be three times higher than that of the non-indigenous population. It is estimated that in 1997 there were 31 indigenous deaths per 100,000 population. This is three times the estimate for the non-indigenous population (10 deaths per 100,000 population). (A)