Road traffic injury

Introduction

Transport is a part of daily life for all Queenslanders and an important component of the Australian economy. Every year, many Queenslanders are injured while using the road network, most often while in a car, or on a motorcycle or bicycle.

This section focuses on injuries that resulted in hospitalisation or death due to road traffic injuries. Injuries treated in other settings or went untreated are excluded, so results presented here underestimate the population-level impacts of road traffic injuries.

For information about the health burden and expenditure due to injuries, please see the injury introductory page.

Hospitalisations

In 2022–23, the Queensland age-standardised hospitalisation rate (ASR or standardised rate) for road traffic injury was 2.6 per 1,000 persons (Figure 1).

Hospitalisation rates for road traffic injury differed by age and sex in 2022–23 (Figure 1):

• The standardised hospitalisation rate for males was 80.9% higher than for females (3.4 and 1.9 per 1,000, respectively).
• Hospitalisation rates generally decreased with increasing age for males and females, with rates higher for males compared to females in each age group.
• Young adults 15 to 29 years had 35.8% higher hospitalisation rate than 65 years and older.
• Males 15 to 29 years had the highest rate of hospitalisation for road traffic injury (4.6 per 1,000).

Remoteness and socioeconomic differences

Rates also varied by region. In 2022–23, the Queensland standardised road traffic injury hospitalisation rate was (Figure 1):

• 49.3% higher in remote and very remote areas than in major cities (3.7 and 2.5 per 1,000 persons, respectively)
• 2.0 times higher in the most disadvantaged group than in most advantaged group (3.7 and 1.8 per 1,000 persons, respectively).

Figure 1: Queensland road traffic injury hospitalisation rates, 2022–23

Trends

For a description of the approach to trend analysis, including important caveats when interpreting results, please see the All Injuries section in this report and methodological information in the About this Report section.

Changes in clinical coding systems and admission practices, especially after the implementation of the Ninth Edition of the The International Statistical Classification for Diseases and Health Problems, Tenth Revision, Australian Modification (ICD-10-AM), from July 2015, as well as potential multiple patient episodes for a single injury due to hospital transfers and rehabilitation, effect comparability over time.¹

Limiting analysis from 2015–16 to 2022–23, trends were stable for hospitalisations related to road traffic injuries (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Trends in Queensland road traffic injury hospitalisation rates

National comparisons

From the national report based on the National Morbidity Database, Queensland had the 2nd highest hospitalisation rate for transport injuries, after Northern Territory, and had higher hospitalisation rates than Australia overall in 2022–23.²

Mortality

In 2022, the Queensland standardised mortality rate for road traffic injuries was 4.5 per 100,000 persons (Figure 3).

Demographic differences

In 2022, Queensland road traffic injury mortality rates differed by sex and age (Figure 3):

• The standardised road traffic injury mortality rate for males was 4.1 times higher than for females (7.3 and 1.8 per 100,000 persons, respectively).
• Mortality rates for road traffic injuries generally decreased with increasing age, with the highest age-specific mortality rate in those 15 to 29 years (6.7 per 100,000 persons).

Remoteness and socioeconomic differences

Standardised mortality rates for road traffic injuries differed by remoteness and socioeconomic status in 2022 (Figure 3):

• The mortality rate in outer regional areas was 2.7 times higher than in major cities (8.1 and 3.0 per 100,000 persons, respectively).
• The mortality rate for road traffic injuries in the most disadvantaged areas was 8.3 per 100,000 persons.

Figure 3: Queensland road traffic injuries mortality rates, 2022

Trends

Over the last two decades, the standardised road traffic injury mortality rate in Queensland declined by 49.9% with males and females showing similar rates of decline. Much of that decrease was driven by declines from 2002 to the mid-2010’s (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Trends in Queensland road traffic injury mortality rates

National and international comparisons

From a national report based on the National Mortality Database, Queensland had the 4th highest mortality rate for transport injuries (excluding Australian Capital Territory), and had a higher mortality rate than Australia overall in 2021–22.²

The Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE) also publishes national and state road trauma statistics for Australia each year, including trends in road fatality rates, and provides international comparisons.

According to the BITRE reports, from 2013 to 2022 road fatality rates in Queensland were relatively stable (increasing by 0.1% per year). In contrast, there were decreases in road fatality rates in New South Wales (3.1% per year), Victoria (2.7% per year) and Australia overall (1.9% per year) over the same period (Figure 5).³

Internationally in 2022, Australia ranked 18th among 31 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations for road deaths, with a fatality rate of 4.54 per 100,000 persons, which was slightly higher than the OECD median (4.28 per 100,000 persons) and was double the rate of Norway (2.14 per 100,000 persons).

From 2013 to 2022, Australia’s road traffic injury mortality rate decreased by 11.4% compared to the median decline among OECD nations of 20.8%.⁴

Figure 5: National and selected state road traffic injuries fatality rates

Additional information

Data and statistics

Visit the following websites for more information:

• Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Injury in Australia
• Queensland Government Road safety statistics

Strategies and information

Visit the following website for more information:

• National Road Safety Strategy 2021–30
• Queensland Government Targeted Road Safety Program

Section technical notes

ASpR refers to age-specific rates.

APC refers to annual percentage change.

Where presented, ratios were calculated using higher precision estimates than in text. Ratios calculated using estimates in text may differ.

Age-standardised rates were calculated by standardising to 2001 Australian standard population.

ICD code groups have changed since the initial CHO report release to better align with other national reports and datasets noting that some differences remain including a subset that AIHW reapportions to jurisdiction of residence. Definitional changes have been applied to all years of data in the time series. See additional information under About this Report.

Hospitalisation data reported in this section were sourced from the Queensland Hospital Admitted Patient Data Collection (QHAPDC). The QHAPDC is episode based, meaning that multiple episodes from a single person will be counted in a reporting period. Separations from interstate residents, public psychiatric hospitals, and those flagged as unqualified newborns, organ donors or boarders are excluded. Due to the definitions used, the statistics presented here may not be comparable to other reports. See additional information under About this Report.

Mortality data presented in this section were sourced from the Australian Coordinating Registry held by the Statistical Services Branch, Queensland Health. Data are presented by year of death, rather than year of registration and are subject to change. Data excludes death of Queensland residents registered outside of Queensland. Data for remoteness and SEIFA excludes records that could not be clearly mapped to an Australian Statistical Geography Standard version.