Road safety remains a serious problem for the community. Road traffic crashes rob us of too many of our young and productive members of our society, and constitute one of the major causes of premature death and injury. Most concerning is that these deaths and injuries are almost always preventable. Tracking of changes in road fatalities over the years shows that road safety has improved markedly over the last century and especially since the early 1970's. Initiatives like compulsory seat belts and random breath testing have reduced fatality rates from over 25 per 100,000 population to currently just over five per 100,000. The gains have slowed significantly over the last two decades and our road safety countermeasures have not had the same impact as previously. The wins are getting harder to achieve. In addition, questions are being raised about the effects of road traffic crashes on injury; especially serious injury. And questions should be asked. First because we really don't have good data on injuries due to road crashes since the focus has always been on road deaths. Second, it is likely that at least some of our efforts to reduce fatalities may actually increase serious injury. Some of our countermeasures act less on preventing crashes and more on limiting damage to the person. This, we fear may be resulting in greater numbers of people with serious longer term injury due to road traffic crashes. We need to know: a) whether this is so, and b) the nature of crashes that results in serious injury so we can prevent them.
Tracking Serious Injury to Improve Road Safety
2015
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
Unknown
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