ABSTRACT
The Road Injury Database of the Road Accident Prevention Research Unit was used to examine the characteristics of crashes in each region. This database consists of records of all police reported casualty crashes, all hospital discharges and all deaths from road traffic crashes in Western Australia for 1988. The rate of hospital admission from road traffic crashes increases with increasing age to a maximum at 15–19 years in the Perth and rural regions and 20–24 years in the remote region. About 46 per cent of the deaths and 77 per cent of the casualties from road traffic crashes occur in the Perth region. Crashes occurring in the rural and remote regions are more lethal, with a higher percentage of casualties dying than in the Perth region. The high fatality rate in the remote and rural regions may be due to higher travelling speeds, lower rates of seat-belt wearing and higher alcohol consumption.
