Epidemiology of motor vehicle collisions
Worldwide it was estimated that 1.25 million people were killed and many millions more were injured in motor vehicle collisions in 2013. This makes motor vehicle collisions the leading cause of death among young adults of 15–29 years of age and the ninth cause of death for all ages worldwide. In the United States, 40,100 people died and 2.8 million were injured in crashes in 2017, and around 2,000 children under 16 years old die every year. It is estimated that motor vehicle collisions caused the deaths of around 60 million people during the 20th century, around the same as the number of World War II casualties.
At worldwide level, traffic accidents is the main cause of unnatural death.
History and trends
Road toll figures in developed nations show that car collision fatalities have declined since 1980. Japan is an extreme example, with road deaths decreasing to 5,115 in 2008, which is 25% of the 1970 rate per capita and 17% of the 1970 rate per vehicle distance travelled. In 2008, for the first time, more pedestrians than vehicle occupants were killed in Japan by cars. Besides improving general road conditions like lighting and separated walkways, Japan has been installing intelligent transportation system technology such as stalled-car monitors to avoid crashes.In developing nations, statistics may be grossly inaccurate or hard to get. Some nations have not significantly reduced the total death rate, which stands at 12,000 in Thailand in 2007, for example.
In the United States, twenty-eight states had reductions in the number of automobile crash fatalities between 2005 and 2006. 55% of vehicle occupants 16 years or older in 2006 were not using seat belts when they crashed.
Road fatality trends tend to follow Smeed's law, an empirical schema that correlates increased fatality rates per capita with traffic congestion.
Deaths
Crashes are categorized by what is struck and the direction of impact, or impacts. These are some common crash types, based on the total number that occurred in the US in 2005, the percentage of total crashes, and the percentage of fatal crashes:- Rear impacts
- Angle or side impacts
- Run-off-road collisions
- Collisions with animals
- Rollovers
- Head-on collision
- Collisions with pedestrians and bicyclists
- Back-up collisions killed 221 people in the US in 2007, and injured about 14,400. This is one of the most common types of non-traffic auto collision in which road workers and children 15 and younger are killed.
Sometimes the vehicles in the collision can suffer more than one type of impact, such as during a shunt or high-speed spin. This is called a "second harmful event," such as when a vehicle is redirected by the first crash into another vehicle or fixed object.
| Country | Surface | Population | Population Density/km2 | Vehicles in circulation | Length of road network | Circulation | Number of vehicles/100 inhabitants | Deaths per million inhabitants | Deaths per billion km travelled |
| Austria | 84 | 8.2 | 97.7 | 5,279 | 107,143 | 82,221 | 64.5 | 93.8 | 9.3 |
| Belgium | 33 | 10.4 | 320.3 | 6,159 | 151,372 | 94,677 | 59.1 | 104.5 | 11.5 |
| Czech Republic | 79 | 10.2 | 129.6 | 4,732 | 55,495 | 50,262 | 46.3 | 95.8 | 17.2 |
| Denmark | 43 | 5.4 | 126 | 2,570 | 72,074 | 47,940 | 47.3 | 61 | 6.9 |
| Finland | 338 | 5.2 | 15.5 | 2,871 | 79,150 | 51,675 | 54.7 | 72.2 | 7.3 |
| France | 551 | 60.5 | 109.7 | 37,168 | 1,002 486 | 552,800 | 61.4 | 77.9 | 9.6 |
| Germany | 357 | 82.5 | 231.1 | 54,520 | 626,981 | 684,283 | 66.1 | 74.8 | 7.8 |
| Greece | 132 | 11.1 | 84 | 6,641 | 40,164 | 81,635 | 59.9 | 149.1 | 20.3 |
| Hungary | 93 | 10.1 | 108.5 | 3,370 | 180,994 | ND | 33.4 | 96.6 | ND |
| Republic of Ireland | 71 | 4.1 | 58.6 | 1,937 | 95,752 | 37,840 | 46.7 | 96.2 | 10.5 |
| Italy | 301 | 58.1 | 192.8 | 43,141 | 305,388 | 654,197 | 74.3 | 94 | 8.3 |
| Luxembourg | 3 | 0.5 | 179.8 | 358 | 2,876 | 2,875 | 77 | 98.9 | 16.0 |
| Netherlands | 42 | 16.3 | 392.5 | 8,627 | 117,430 | 133,800 | 52.9 | 46 | 5.6 |
| Poland | 323 | 38.5 | 119.4 | 16,815 | 381,462 | 377,289 | 43.6 | 81.3 | 10.4 |
| Portugal | 93 | 10.5 | 113.3 | 5,481 | 81,739 | ND | 52.2 | 118.8 | ND |
| United Kingdom | 244 | 60.2 | 246.7 | 33,717 | 413,120 | 499,396 | 56 | 55.9 | 6.7 |
| Slovakia | 49 | 5.4 | 110.1 | 1,834 | 17,755 | 13,402 | 34 | 112.6 | 45.4 |
| Slovenia | 20 | 2 | 97 | 1,150 | 20,196 | 15,519 | 58.5 | 69* | 16.6 |
| Spain | 505 | 43.4 | 86 | 27,657 | 666,204 | ND | 63.7 | 103.1 | ND |
| Sweden | 450 | 9 | 20.1 | 5,131 | 214,000 | 75,196 | 56.8 | 48.7 | 5.9 |
| Partial Total Eu | 3809 | 451.1 | 118.4 | 269,158 | 4,631,781 | 3,451,938 | 59.7 | 87.5 | 11.6 |
| Iceland | 103 | 0.3 | 2.9 | 236 | 91,916 | 2,006 | 80.3 | 64.6 | 9.5 |
| Norway | 324 | 4.6 | 14.3 | 2,938 | 92,511 | 36,550 | 63.6 | 48.5 | 6.1 |
| Switzerland | 41 | 7.4 | 179.6 | 5,043 | 71,027 | 62,685 | 68 | 55.2 | 6.5 |
Representation of regional death statistics on map reveals significant differences even between neighboring regions.
; Source IRTAD for the following data:
Deaths per passenger-kilometer
The 28 EU-28 countries, for the 28 members, computed an indicator named "per 10 billion pkm".Pkm is an indicator of traffic volume which is used for not having consistent vehicle-kilometre data. Are counted cars and estimated motorised two-wheelers. In 2016, this indicator ranges from 23 for Sweden to 192 for Romania, with a value of 52 for the EU-28. In Germany, France, the UK and Italy, this score is respectively 33, 46, 28, 44.