Epidemiology of motor vehicle collisions

Deaths for road traffic collisions per 100,000 inhabitants in 2012.^[1]

  no data

  less than 5

  5-10

  10-15

  15-20

  20-25

  25-30

  30-35

  35-40

  more than 40

Road fatalities per 1 billion vehicle-km in 2004

  no data

  < 5.0

  5.0-6.5

  6.5-8.0

  8.0-9.5

  9.5-11.0

  11.0-12.5

  12.5-14.0

  14.0-15.5

  15.5-17.0

  17.0-18.5

  18.5-20.0

  > 20.0

Worldwide it was estimated that 1.25 million people were killed and many millions more were injured in motor vehicle collisions in 2013.^[2] This makes motor vehicle collisions the leading cause of death among young adults of 15-29 years of age (360,000 die a year) and the ninth cause of death for all ages worldwide.^[3] In the United States, 32,675 people died and 2.3 million were injured in crashes in 2014.^[4] It is estimated that motor vehicle collisions caused the deaths of around 60 million people during the 20th century,^[5] around the same as the number of World War II casualties.

Modern crash statistics often focus on reportable injury crashes (which include deaths) rather than reporting on deaths alone. It is believed that serious crashes are often significantly under-reported, under-recorded and misclassified^[6] and that the completeness of reporting may vary over time and between sources.^[7]

Trends

US annual deaths per billion vehicle miles traveled (VMT) vs annual VMT (tens of billions), 1921 to 2015.

Road toll figures in developed nations show that car collision fatalities have declined since 1980. Japan is an extreme example, with road deaths decreasing to 5,115 in 2008, which is 25% of the 1970 rate per capita and 17% of the 1970 rate per vehicle distance travelled. In 2008, for the first time, more pedestrians than vehicle occupants were killed in Japan by cars.^[8] Besides improving general road conditions like lighting and separated walkways, Japan has been installing intelligent transportation system technology such as stalled-car monitors to avoid crashes.

In developing nations, statistics may be grossly inaccurate or hard to get. Some nations have not significantly reduced the total death rate, which stands at 12,000 in Thailand in 2007, for example.^[9]

In the United States, twenty-eight states had reductions in the number of automobile crash fatalities between 2005 and 2006.^[10] 55% of vehicle occupants 16 years or older in 2006 were not using seat belts when they crashed.^[11]

Road fatality trends tend to follow Smeed's law,^[12] an empirical schema that correlates increased fatality rates per capita with traffic congestion.

Proportion of deaths by type of impact

According to Eurostat the automobile is one of the less safe means of transport, if safety is measured as the less number of fatalities per travelled distance. Based on data by EU-27 member nations, 2008-2010.^[13][14]

Crashes are categorized by what is struck and the direction of impact, or impacts. These are some common crash types, based on the total number that occurred in the U.S.A. in 2005, the percentage of total crashes, and the percentage of fatal crashes:^[15]

• Rear impacts (1,824,000 crashes, 29.6% of all US crashes, 5.4% of US fatal crashes)
• Angle or side impacts (1,779,000 crashes, 28.9% of all US crashes, 20.7% of US fatal crashes)
• Run-off-road collisions (992,000 crashes, 16.1% of US crashes, 31.7% of US fatal crashes)
• Collisions with animals (275,000 crashes, 4.5% of US crashes, 0.4% of fatal crashes)
• Rollovers (141,000 crashes, 2.3% of all US crashes, 10.9% of US fatal crashes)
• Head-on collision (123,000 crashes, only 2.0% of all US crashes, but 10.1% of US fatal crashes)
• Collisions with pedestrians and bicyclists (114,000 crashes, only 1.8% of US crashes, but 13.5% of US fatal crashes)
• Back-up collisions killed 221 people in the US in 2007, and injured about 14,400. This is one of the most common types of non-traffic auto collision in which road workers and children 15 and younger are killed.^[16][17]

Rollover, head-on, pedestrian, and bicyclist crashes combined are only 6.1% of all crashes, but cause 34.5% of traffic-related fatalities.

Sometimes the vehicles in the collision can suffer more than one type of impact, such as during a shunt or high-speed spin. This is called a "second harmful event," such as when a vehicle is redirected by the first crash into another vehicle or fixed object.

Statistics in Europe

Country	Surface (thousands of km^2)	Population (millions)	Population Density/km^2	Vehicles in circulation (thousands)	Length of road network (kilometers)	Circulation (millions of vehicles x km)	Number of vehicles/100 inhabitants	Deaths per million inhabitants	Deaths per billion km travelled
Austria	84	8.2	97.7	5,279	107,143	82,221	64.5	93.8	9.3
Belgium	33	10.4	320.3	6,159	151,372	94,677	59.1	104.5	11.5
Czech Republic	79	10.2	129.6	4,732	55,495	50,262	46.3	95.8	17.2
Denmark	43	5.4	126	2,570	72,074	47,940	47.3	61	6.9
Finland	338	5.2	15.5	2,871	79,150	51,675	54.7	72.2	7.3
France	551	60.5	109.7	37,168	1,002 486	552,800	61.4	77.9	9.6
Germany	357	82.5	231.1	54,520	626,981	684,283	66.1	74.8	7.8
Greece	132	11.1	84	6,641	40,164	81,635	59.9	149.1	20.3
Hungary	93	10.1	108.5	3,370	180,994	ND	33.4	96.6	ND
Republic of Ireland	71	4.1	58.6	1,937	95,752	37,840	46.7	96.2	10.5
Italy	301	58.1	192.8	43,141	305,388	654,197	74.3	94	8.3
Luxembourg	3	0.5	179.8	358	2,876	2,875	77	98.9	16.0
Netherlands	42	16.3	392.5	8,627	117,430	133,800	52.9	46	5.6
Poland	323	38.5	119.4	16,815	381,462	377,289	43.6	81.3	10.4
Portugal	93	10.5	113.3	5,481	81,739	ND	52.2	118.8	ND
United Kingdom	244	60.2	246.7	33,717	413,120	499,396	56	55.9	6.7
Slovakia	49	5.4	110.1	1,834	17,755	13,402	34	112.6	45.4
Slovenia	20	2	97	1,150	20,196	15,519	58.5	69*	16.6
Spain	505	43.4	86	27,657	666,204	ND	63.7	103.1	ND
Sweden	450	9	20.1	5,131	214,000	75,196	56.8	48.7	5.9
Partial Total Eu (20 countries)	3809	451.1	118.4	269,158	4,631,781	3,451,938	59.7	87.5	11.6
Iceland	103	0.3	2.9	236	91,916	2,006	80.3	64.6	9.5
Norway	324	4.6	14.3	2,938	92,511	36,550	63.6	48.5	6.1
Switzerland	41	7.4	179.6	5,043	71,027	62,685	68	55.2	6.5

Source IRTAD for the following data

Number of vehicles: 2005 except Ireland 2003; Luxembourg 2004; Slovakia 2002.

Length of the network: 2005 except Hungary and Luxembourg 2004; Germany and Denmark 2003; Slovakia 2002; Iceland 2000; Ireland 2001; Netherlands 1999; Greece and United Kingdom 1998; Portugal 1993; Italy 1992.

Distance in Kilometres: 2005 except Denmark 2004; Italy and Netherlands 2003; Ireland 2001; Iceland and Slovakia 2000; United Kingdom and Greece 1998.

Population: source IRTAD except for Ireland, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Sweden, Iceland and Norway: source INED.

See also

• Road-traffic safety
• Management systems for road safety
• Smeed's law

Nations:

• List of motor vehicle deaths in Australia by year
• List of motor vehicle deaths in Japan by year
• List of motor vehicle deaths in U.S. by year

Notes

1. "WHO Disease and injury country estimates". World Health Organization. 2014. Retrieved 15 Jul 2016.
2. World Health Organization. "Number of road traffic deaths". Retrieved 15 Jul 2016.
3. "Global status report on road safety 2015" (PDF). World Health Organization. Retrieved Jul 15, 2016.
4. "Traffic fatalities fall in 2014, but early estimates show 2015 trending higher". National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Retrieved 15 Jul 2016.
5. ROBERTA PESCE (Apr 2, 2013). "Death in the 20th Century. The Infographic".
6. Simpson, H F. Comparison of hospital and police casualty data: a national study (TRL Report 173 ed.). Transport Research Laboratory. there may be 2.76 times as many seriously injured casualties than are recorded in the national casualty figures and 1.70 slight casualties
7. Gill, Goldacre, & Yeates (23 June 2006). "Changes in safety on England's roads: analysis of hospital statistics". British medical Journal.
8. Pedestrians become chief victims of road accident deaths in 2008
9. 365 Days for Stopping Accident Deaths
10. People Killed in Motor Vehicle Crashes, by State, 2005-2006
11. NCSA Research Note (DOT-HS-810-948). US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. May 2008.
12. Adams, John. "Smeed's Law : some further thoughts" (PDF). University College London.
13. "Statistics database for transports". http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu (statistical database). Eurostat, European Commission. 20 April 2014. Retrieved 12 May 2014. External link in |website= (help)
14. Vojtech Eksler, ed. (5 May 2013). "Intermediate report on the development of railway safety in the European Union 2013" (PDF). http://www.era.europa.eu (report). Safety Unit, European Railway Agency & European Union. p. 1. Retrieved 12 May 2014. External link in |website= (help)
15. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Traffic Safety Facts 2005, 2007, P. 54. http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/810631.pdf
16. The Risk of Reverse. New York Times 10 April 2009.
17. "Building Safer Highway Work Zones: Measures to Prevent Worker Injuries From Vehicles and Equipment" (PDF). NIOSH, April 2001.

References

• "People killed in road accidents". Eurostat.
• Badger, Emily; Ingraham, Christopher (October 1, 2015), "The hidden inequality of who dies in car crashes", The Washington Post
• Fey A, ;Becker IV, ;Furlani LF, ;Teixeira JVC, ;Bahter LCV, ;Teixeira JVC. ; Perfil epidemiológico dos óbitos em accidentes de trânsito na região do Alto Vale do Itajaí, Santa Catarina, Brasil. Revista On-line da Associação Catarinense de Medicina. 2011; V40 N1: 23-27.
• Fey A, ;Enge Junior DJ, ;Becker IV, ;Teixeira JVC, ;Teixeira JVC. ; Perfil dos accidentes de trânsito com vítimas fatais do Alto Vale do Itajaí segundo dados dos boletins policiais de ocorrência da polícia rodoviária federal– BR 470, estadual e perímetro urbano de Rio do Sul no período de 2004 a 2006. Revista On-line da Associação Catarinense de Medicina. 2012; V41 N3: 20-25.