Heavy vehicle road deaths fall

The number of deaths from road accidents involving heavy vehicles is continuing to drop, states latest Government report

The latest data from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) shows the number of deaths from road traffic accidents involving heavy vehicles is continuing to fall, with the 211 deaths recorded in 2015 down from the 220 recorded the year before.

More importantly, the 70-page report titled, Road trauma involving heavy vehicles, 2015 statistical summary, shows that annual deaths from crashes involving heavy vehicles has decreased by 19.8 per cent over the past decade, with the estimated trend showing a fall of 3.2 per cent per year.

Vehicle occupants accounted for 73.0 per cent of the fatalities, the remainder comprising pedestrians (10.8 per cent), motorcyclists (9.9 per cent) and cyclists (4.5 per cent).

The majority of deaths in accidents involving heavy vehicles in 2015 stemmed from articulated trucks (53.0 per cent), followed by heavy rigid trucks (37.2 per cent) and buses (9.8 per cent).

Around 1600 people are hospitalised from crashes involving heavy vehicles each year – the figure representing approximately 4.8 per cent of all road traffic accident hospitalisations – while crash rates per billion kilometres across all three heavy vehicle categories have fallen.

Click here to read the full BITRE report.

Heavy vehicle road deaths fall

Tags