Bull Bar Prevalence Among Types of Vehicle in Metropolitan Adelaide

The purpose of this study was to estimate the prevalence of bull bars at typical pedestrian crash sites in metropolitan Adelaide, and to disaggregate the measured prevalence by type of vehicle. In 2007 a survey was conducted to examine the proportion of vehicles fitted with bull bars in Adelaide, South Australia, at sites where pedestrian crashes had occurred in the past. The sample was stratified to examine the prevalence in separate geographical regions of the metropolitan area of Adelaide. The survey results were combined using weights determined from the relative instances of pedestrian crashes in the three survey strata. The present study paper extends the results of the original survey by recording counts of different vehicle types using video footage of the original survey enabling the proportions of bull bar equipped vehicles within each vehicle type to be determined. It was found that 45.4% of four-wheel-drive vehicles (4WDs)/sports utility vehicles (SUVs), 49.8% of work utilities, 15.6% of vans, 1.5% of passenger cars and derivatives, 28% of trucks and 23.3% of buses were equipped with a bull bar. It was also found that alloy bull bars are the most common, more than twice as common as steel bull bars and over fifteen times as common as plastic bull bars. Alloy bull bars are particularly popular on 4WDs/SUVs and sedan and sedan derivatives where their fitment is three times more common than a steel bull bar. Vans were the only type of vehicle to be more commonly fitted with a steel bull bar than an alloy bull bar.