Trends in the Burden of Serious Road Traffic Crashes in Victoria, Australia

Road traffic injuries are a major cause of death and disability. We investigated temporal trends in the incidence, mortality, Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) and costs of health loss of serious road traffic injury in Victoria from 2007 to 2015. We observed a reduction in disability burden in motor vehicle occupants, motorcyclists and pedestrians, which was driven by decreases in fatalities. However, there was no change in serious injury rates for these road user groups. In contrast, DALYs increased 47% in pedal cyclists from 2007 to 2015. The costs of health loss from road traffic injury totalled over A$13 billion.