Victorian road toll falls in 2002

01 Jan 2003

Media Release - 1 January 2003

The 2002-year was one of the safest ever on Victorian roads, with the State's annual road toll dropping 10% on the previous year's total.

Last year 398 lives were lost as a result of road trauma, down from 444 in 2001 when Victoria recorded its worst road toll in a decade.

In 2002, Victoria achieved a number of records including the lowest ever: metropolitan toll, number of pedestrians killed; number of fatalities of people aged 60 and above; and number of deaths per 10,000 registered vehicles (1.16).

TAC Chief Executive Officer Stephen Grant said that while we can all be proud of the improvement in last year's toll, we only need to look at the tragic loss of life over the current Christmas/New Year holiday period to be reminded that more than one person is still killed on our roads each day.

"The positive news this year is that we have seen a reduction in fatalities for every age group over 21 and have recorded the lowest ever metropolitan toll," he said.

"This time last year, three key trends were identified that had attributed to the horrific 2001 road toll – deaths involving motorcyclists, pedestrians and people aged 60 plus.

"With our road safety partners, we jointly developed and delivered specific programs to target these groups and the early signs are encouraging. In 2002, motorcyclist deaths dropped by 13%, pedestrian fatalities dropped 28% and the toll amongst people aged 60 plus is down 29%.

"However, these results should not distract us from addressing some serious developments, including an increase in the number of drivers killed with a blood alcohol concentration of over the legal limit (the highest in 8 years) and an increase of 8% in the number of deaths on country roads.

"Our challenge as a community for 2003 is to continue to take action on the key problems that cause loss of life and serious injury on our roads."

A breakdown of the year's figures compared with 2001 shows:

• metropolitan deaths decreased by 62 (25%) from 248 to 186, while country deaths increased by 16 (8%) from 196 to 212;
• deaths of drivers (207 in 2001 compared with 187 in 2002), motorcyclists (from 64 to 56) and pedestrians (81 to 58) all decreased;
• deaths of female road-users (from 130 to 98) and male road-users (from 314 to 3000) decreased;
• deaths among the traditionally high risk group of 21 to 25 year olds decreased by 7 (down 11% from 63 to 56);
• deaths per 10,000 vehicles dropped to 1.16, the lowest ever on record;
• the number of drivers killed with a BAC over the legal limit was the highest in 8 years (12 months to September);
• deaths of children aged 5-15 years increased by 7 (54%) from 13 to 20; and
• deaths of young people aged 16-20 increased by 12 (22%) from 55 to 67.

Further information:

De-Arnne Schmidt
TAC
Tel: 1300 654329