Driving Them Home: Public Health Road Safety Risks in the Regions

Braedon Onions, Simon Paton, GL Mendz, Professor Joseph Suttie

Introduction: 

Data from the Australian Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics paints a stark picture with over 1,000 annually recorded road fatalities. Similarly, the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communication has identified nearly 40,000 cases of road crash related hospitalised injuries. Rural and remote communities are often overrepresented vehicle-related injuries and fatalities. These statistics highlight the urgency of addressing road safety as a pressing public health priority. 

A considered method to eliminate these incidents is to remove the human factor from the driving process. As autonomous vehicles seamlessly become a part of our transportation ecosystem, their transformative potential for enhancing public health and road safety is becoming increasingly apparent. Implementation of this new technology however raises questions around risk and responsibility. Data United States Department of Transportation is enabling analysis of crashes for vehicles utilising SAE level 2 autonomous driving features

Impact on Regional Communities:

Rural areas bear a disproportionate burden of road trauma, 55%, with two-thirds of fatalities occuring outside urban centres in regional and remote areas. The types of crashes and the speed at which crashes occur in regional areas are particularly dangerous (100 km/h in most jurisdictions). Only 40% of all crashes are in regional areas but their severity amplifies the fatality rate.  Over 95% of all crashes can in part be attributed to the human factor.  Trials of autonomous heavy vehicles in flood-prone western Queensland highlight additional infrastructure vulnerabilities, where reliable roads are critical to success.

The ethics of how decisions are made by autonomous vehicles that result in loss of human life is very much undefined. The concept of the driving task essentially being taken over by a computer opens up a lot of questions. A prominent one includes the direct culpability associated with reactive decision making (as found in traditional driving) compared to premeditated decision making when a driving incident occurs. The concern comes in when action is taken by an autonomous vehicle that results in injury to the occupants or alternatively that results in injury to a third party. This is where we might consider Philippa Foot’s trolley car thought experiment and how an autonomous vehicle might respond when presented with an ethical dilemma.

Crash Speed Analysis in SAE L2 Vehicles

Data from the United States Department of Transportation is enabling analysis of crashes for vehicles utilising SAE level 2 autonomous driving features. Comparing the crash trends in NSW compared to SAE L2 data, lower speed crashes are more prominent (generally in urban environments) for human drivers. Alternately, higher speed crashes are almost as common as lower speed crashes in SAE L2 vehicles.

Conclusion

Motor vehicle crashes are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality, particularly in rural areas. The preliminary data indicates that higher and lower speeds crashes are happening at a similar frequency in SAE L2 vehicles. When compared to human driven vehicles we see lower speed crashes happen more frequently. Given that the rural crashes generally tend to have a higher crash speed, we would we would expect to see an even greater fatality disparity than the current state when compared to urban crashes with the implementation of autonomous vehicles in the regions. 

The need to establish evidence-based skin cancer screening is paramount. Risk-stratified intervals has potential to improve efficiency, cost-effectiveness and minimize unnecessary healthcare resource strain.

References

Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications (2021) Injuries data, Office of Road Safety. Available at: https://www.officeofroadsafety.gov.au/data-hub/serious-injuries-data. 

Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (2021) Road trauma Australia 2021 statistical summary. Available at: https://www.bitre.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/road_trauma_2021.pdf.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. (n.d.). Standing General Order on Crash Reporting. Retrieved from https://www.nhtsa.gov/laws-regulations/standing-general-order-crash-reporting

Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts. (n.d.). Factsheet: Regional road safety. National Road Safety Strategy. Available at: https://www.roadsafety.gov.au/nrss/fact-sheets/regional-road-safety

Transport for NSW. (2024). Road Traffic Casualty Crashes in New South Wales: Statistical Statement for the Year Ended 31 December 2023. Available at: https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/system/files/media/documents/2024/crs_crashstats_2023.pdf