Some Australian Driving Statistics

Kilometres Travelled per vehicle in 2004

In 2004 the average Australian passenger car travelled about 13,850 kilometres.

Source: abs.gov.au

In 2004 the average British passenger car travelled about 14,000 kilometres.
Source: The AA

Kilometres travelled per vehicle in 2005

• 14,848 Australia
• 15,225 Great Britain

Number of Vehicles in Australia

In the 12 months ended 31 October 2004 there were:
an estimated 13.5 million vehicles registered in Australia,
and about 29.7 million vehicles registered in the UK in 2001

Number of Accidents in Australia

The year to date road toll of Australian Road fatalities to the end of December 2003 is 1,634.

This is a 4.7% decrease from the same period in 2002, and has been steadily reducing from 2,801 in 1989.

This compares to the UK road fatality rate of 3,508 in 2003 as per info sourced at:

• www.dft.gov.uk

which shows an increase of 2 per cent from 3,431 in 2002

There were 3,421 fatalities in 1998.

UK comparison info from 2001 at :

• http://www.dvla.gov.uk/public/press_releases/2003/p_release_0303_18Feb03.htm

Speeding

Some statistics for speed cameras in Queensland produces some interesting results recently.

The figures have been produced comparing Fixed Cameras, where most drivers are aware of the position of the camera and Mobile cameras, where most drivers only see them after they have gone past.

Jan-Oct 2008

Fixed Cameras

Total vehicles recorded 20,739,693, Number over the speed limit 66,013 or 0.32%

Mobile Cameras

Total vehicles recorded 32,941,280, Number over the speed limit 351,334 or 1.07%

It does show that FIXED location speed cameras do slow people down more than the hidden ones.

But, it also shows that only about 1% of drivers speed ?

Drink Driving in Australia

The legal limit for drivers in all States, is below 0.05. For drivers on a probationary licence (P plates) or learner drivers (L plates), no alcohol is allowed. The limit for some groups of professional drivers is 0.02.

Random Breath Tests (RBT) are much more common in Australia than in the UK, for example:

• 2004 in the UK: police carried out 578,000 breath tests on drivers in England and Wales (pop: 60 Million)
• 2004 in Australia: there were 653,333 random breath tests conducted in South Australia alone (pop: 1.5 Million)
• 2006 in the UK: police carried out 601,600 breath tests on drivers in England and Wales (pop: 60 Million) – source
• 2008 in Australia: 1.13 million breath tests were conducted in Melbourne, Victoria in the 12 months to September, 2008 (pop: 3.7Million)

Some example Results from Police Operations of Random Breath Testing

• May 22nd 2006 Surfers Paradise QLD. 101 over the limit from 3,059 Breath Tests.
• April 25th 2006 69 Sites in South Australia. 36 over the limit from 13,094 Breath Tests
• Jan 26th 2006 50 Sites in South Australia. 24 over the limit from 5,540 Breath Tests
• December 2008. In the 2 weeks from Dec 19, 2008, Queensland carried out 205,000 Breath Tests, with 1,606 testing positive

Some Driving Statistics

Average Annual Kilometres driven in 2007

Motor vehicles registered in Australia travelled an average of 14,600 kilometres per vehicle in the 12 months ended 31 October 2007.
Queensland (15,200 kilometres), the Northern Territory (15,100 kilometres) and Victoria (15,100 kilometres) were above the national average, while vehicles registered in South Australia travelled the least number of average kilometres (12,400).
Source: ABS 9208.0

Average Annual Kilometres driven in 2005

Each registered vehicle in Australia travelled an average distance of 14,800 kilometres during the 12 months ended 31 October 2005.
Vehicles registered in Queensland travelled the furthest averaging 16,100 kilometres. South Australia travelled the least averaging 13,100 kilometres.

Articulated trucks travelled an average of 92,100 kilometres, which was more than six times that of ‘Australian’ passenger vehicles which travelled an average of 14,100 kilometres.
Source: http://www.abs.gov.au September 7, 2006

Australian Transport Safety Bureau – International Road Safety Comparisons: The 2005 Report

From the above statistics, we can calculate:

Kilometres travelled per vehicle in 2005

• 14,848 Australia
• 15,225 Great Britain

Kilometres travelled per person

• 10,167 Australia
• 8,537 Great Britain

Number of Vehicles per each 1,000 of population

• 685 Australia
• 561 Great Britain

A common conception is that Australians drive more than the British;

There are however TWO ways to look at this.

• The average British vehicle travels 15,225 kms, whilst
• The average Australian vehicle travels 14,848 kms, showing that the British travel about 2.5% more than the Australians

However, as the Australian have about 22% more cars per head of population than the British, it then shows that the average Australian travels about 19% more than the British:

Kilometres travelled per person

• 10,167 Australia
• 8,537 Great Britain

So, the Australians seem to have more vehicles per family, but travel less in each individual vehicle than the British, although travel more in total, due to the larger number of vehicles in each family.

2006 Road Death Comparative Figures

From the International Road Safety Comparisons 2006 Report, we see the following reports:

Road deaths per 100,000 people:

• 3.9 Australian Capital Territory, Australia
• 5.4 Great Britain
• 6.6 Victoria, Australia
• 7.3 New South Wales, Australia
• 7.5 South Australia
• 7.7 France
• 7.7 Australia – All states combined
• 8.2 Queensland, Australia
• 9.9 Western Australia
• 11.2 Tasmania, Australia
• 14.2 United States of America
• 19.9 Northern Territory, Australia

Road deaths per 100 million vehicle kilometres travelled:

• 0.4 Australian Capital Territory, Australia
• 0.6 Victoria, Australia
• 0.6 Great Britain
• 0.7 Queensland, Australia
• 0.8 New South Wales, Australia
• 0.8 France
• 0.8 Australia – All states combined
• 0.8 South Australia
• 0.9 Western Australia
• 1.1 Tasmania, Australia
• 2.6 Northern Territory, Australia

Source: Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government

2005 Road Death Comparative Figures

From the International Road Safety Comparisons 2005 Report, we see:

Road deaths per 100 million vehicle kilometres travelled:

• 0.6 Great Britain
• 0.7 Queensland, Australia
• 0.7 Victoria, Australia
• 0.8 New South Wales, Australia
• 0.8 Australian Capital Territory, Australia
• 0.8 Western Australia
• 1.0 France
• 1.0 South Australia
• 1.0 Tasmania, Australia
• 3.4 Northern Territory, Australia

2004 Road Death Figures

From a UK report for 2004 http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1208
UK Road Deaths stand at 6.14 per 100,000 population.
3,221 in 2004, down from 3,599 in 1999.

Australian comparison figures from: Click here for link
7.94 road crash deaths per 100,000 people in 2004 compared with 9.32 in 1999;
1,596 road crash deaths in 2004 compared with 1,764 in 1999.

The Summer Holiday/Christmas-New Year Death tolls for each year have been:

• 2008/09 – 59 (NSW – 13 : VIC – 14 : QLD – 12 : SA – 1 : WA – 13 : TAS – 1 : NT – 5 : ACT – 0 : )
• 2007/08 – 48 (NSW – 8 : VIC – 17 : QLD – 5 : SA – 2 : WA – 12 : TAS – 1 : NT – 1 : ACT – 2 : )
• 2006/07 – 62 (NSW – 18 : VIC – 16 : QLD – 13 : SA – 3 : WA – 7 : TAS – 4 : NT – 1 : ACT – 0 : )
• 2005/06 – 83 (NSW – 22 : VIC – 16 : QLD – 20 : SA – 12 : WA – 10 : TAS – 2 : NT – 1 : ACT – 0 : )
• 2004/05 – 48 (NSW – 16 : VIC – 13 : QLD – 6 : SA – 2 : WA – 6 : TAS – 1 : NT – 3 : ACT – 1 : )
• 2003/04 – 76 (NSW – 21 : VIC – 17 : QLD – 19 : SA – 8 : WA – 4 : TAS – 4 : NT – 3 : ACT – 0 : )
• 2002/03 – 68 (NSW – 16 : VIC – 20 : QLD – 11 : SA – 13 : WA – 6 : TAS – 1 : NT – 1 : ACT – 0 : )

The Australian Annual Road Death tolls for each year have been:

Source: www.infrastructure.gov.au

Queensland Road Deaths

Source

In Queensland during the five years 2003 to 2007, speeding was a contributing factor in one in every five road fatalities (21.6 per cent of the road toll).

In 2007, the 360 Road Deaths in Queensland were broken down by the following causes:

• 105 Drink Driving (29%)
• 95 Speeding (26%)
• 65 Fatigue (18%)
• 53 Inattention (15%)
• 42 Other (12%)

2006 UK Road tolls

• 3,172 people were killed on Britains roads in 2006
• 28,673 people were seriously injured in road crashes in 2006.
• 226,559 people sustained minor injuries in road crashes in 2006.

http://www.brake.org.uk/index.php?p=1187

Links

• Australian Bureau of Statistics www.abs.gov.au