Road fatalities in rural New South Wales: weighing the causes

The major concern in a study of untimely death in a country region of New South Wales was: what caused fatal motor vehicle accidents? We examined coroners' records over a three-year period to obtain information on road conditions and driver ability, paying particular attention to the influence of alcohol. Age-specific fatality rates, compared with coroners' data from the Sydney metropolitan area, revealed elevated rates for all age groups, especially among those aged from 15 to 29 years. The most vulnerable age group was 15 to 29 years, for which the death rate was more than four times as high as for their metropolitan counterpart. Alcohol was a major contributing factor. The driver's inability to handle his vehicle outweighed the condition of country roads as the primary cause of fatal crashes.