Driving Around Melbourne and the Risks of Crashing

Driving around Melbourne is estimated from an exposure survey conducted in Autumn 2001. The risk of crashing per distance travelled is calculated using corresponding crash frequencies during the 3-year period: 2000-2002.

To develop and evaluate road safety initiatives, it is important to assess the circumstances with high crash risk as well as the circumstances with high crash frequency . Distance travelled depends on the type of vehicle, the occupants, the place, the time, etc. and hence the risk of crashing can be relatively higher or relatively lower than expected from the number of crashes. Knowledge of both measures provides more accurate benefit/cost estimations than estimations based on crash frequencies alone.

This project produces thousands of risk measures: number of crashes per distance travelled corresponding to (a) the chosen interest group (type of vehicle or occupancy of vehicle), (b) the type of risk (driver involvement or driver injury) and (c) the type of crash. For example, absolute risk values can be calculated for casualty crash involvement for young drivers at night, or the risk of serious injury to the driver in rear end crashes.

The results of this study are available on a CD and consist of three published reports and an interactive tool for displaying the chosen risk estimates. The three reports, summarised in this conference paper are:
– Steer Davis Gleave (2002) Melbourne On-Road Exposure Survey 2001: MORES-01
– Drummond, A. (2003) Driving Around Melbourne (Ref:2)
– Drummond, A (2004) The Risks of Crashing While Driving Around Melbourne (Ref:3)