Passenger vehicle safety in Australasia for different driver groups

doi:10.1016/j.aap.2010.10.012

Accident Analysis & Prevention

Volume 43, Issue 3, May 2011, Pages 684-689

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2010.10.012 Get rights and content

Abstract

Vehicle fleets in developed countries have benefitted from improved technology and regulation leading to safer vehicles. Nevertheless, for various reasons the public do not necessarily choose particular makes and models of cars according to their safety performance. This study aimed to identify areas for potential crashworthiness improvement in the Australasian fleets by studying the distribution of these fleets according to vehicle age and estimated crashworthiness. We used an existing database that encompassed the vast majority of the crash fleets studied, with existing estimates of crashworthiness generated by the Australasian Used Car Safety Ratings project. There were clear tendencies for older and younger people to be driving less safe vehicles that were also generally older. Given that older drivers are more fragile, and hence more liable to be injured in crashes, and younger drivers have a greater propensity to crash, it is clearly undesirable that these driver groups have the least crashworthy vehicles. Some suggestions are made to encourage safer vehicle choices.

Research highlights

► We studied the vehicle age and crashworthiness of Australasian crash fleets. ► Females generally drove older cars than males within driver age group. ► But females generally drove cars with poorer crashworthiness than males. ► Older and younger drivers particularly need cars with better crashworthiness.

Section snippets

Background

The protection the vehicle affords to its occupants in the event of a crash is commonly expressed in terms of crashworthiness. Crashworthiness for a given vehicle can be estimated as the probability of injury, or death and serious injury, to a driver when involved in a crash. Crashworthiness depends to some extent on vehicle mass, with heavier cars generally having better crashworthiness but higher aggressivity, and the converse true for lighter cars. However, effective vehicle construction and

Data and methods

Data compiled for the Used Car Safety Ratings project (Newstead et al., 2009) from New Zealand (NZ) and the Australian states of New South Wales (NSW), Victoria (VIC), Queensland (QLD), South Australia (SA) and Western Australia (WA) were used to describe driver demographics and crash vehicle profiles. These data were derived from police reported crashes during the years 2001–2005. In addition, we obtained crashworthiness estimates from the Used Car Safety Ratings programme regular updates as

Results

Fig. 1 shows the age distributions of the six light passenger vehicle crash fleets analysed. The maxima of the graphs (the modes of the distributions) show the most common ages of vehicles entering the fleet (whether used vehicles imported from other countries, from other states, or new vehicles), assuming that similar numbers of vehicles and similar age distributions of vehicles enter the fleet each year. The modal ages of New Zealand crashed vehicles were 9–13 years. This age distribution is

Discussion

Both the Australian and New Zealand vehicle fleets have benefitted greatly from improved crashworthiness over the last 20 years at least (Keall et al., 2007, Newstead et al., 2004). These improvements have been motivated by various factors, including regulation of safety standards of vehicles and market demand for more safety features, led by both local and international focus on vehicle safety. Nevertheless, the current research has shown that there are clear inequalities in the average level

Conclusions

The age distribution of the 2001–2005 crashed vehicle fleets of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and New Zealand showed that New South Wales and Victoria had the newest fleets and New Zealand by far the oldest. Large cars dominated the fleets of all the Australian male driver age groups, but for females, only featured strongly in the 26–59-year-old drivers’ fleets. The market group constitution of the New Zealand fleet was unusual, with the crash fleets

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the members and observers of the Used Car Safety Ratings Project Steering Committee for their funding and support of the project and to Linda Watson of MUARC for preparing the data.

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View full text

Passenger vehicle safety in Australasia for different driver groups

Abstract

Research highlights

Section snippets

Background

Data and methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusions

Acknowledgements

Journal of Safety Research

Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment

Journal of Safety Research

Accident Analysis and Prevention

Accident Analysis & Prevention

Accident Analysis and Prevention

Accident Analysis & Prevention

Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment

Measuring Crashworthiness: Make/Model ratings and the influence of Australian Design Rules for motor vehicle safety

Age and fatality risk from similar severity impacts

Journal of Traffic Medicine

Traffic Safety