Road trauma: a comparison of males vs females

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Is Road Trauma a problem amongst the male population?
Historically men have been over-represented in road crash casualties.

Figure 1 below illustrates the number of total casualties per year for both males and females since 1981.

Figure 1 – Number of casualties (fatal, serious and minor) per year, 1981-2003


Over time males have experienced a major decline in the number of casualties per year. However since 1998 the number of male casualties has been on the increase again.

The most noticeable feature of this graph is the way that the number of female casualties per year has increased to the same level as male casualties.

However, when you look at levels of injury, this trend is only apparent because of increased female involvement in minor injuries. Unfortunately males still predominate in the more serious casualties, see Table 1 below.

Table 1 - Number of casualties by severity, 1981-2003

Fatality rates by age
Table 2 – Average number of fatalities and rate per 10,000 population by age, 2001-2003

Males on average have nearly 3 times the number of road crash fatalities per year compared to females. This is also reflected in the rate of fatalities per 10,000 persons.

The over represented road user groups tend to be young adult males at 2.8 fatalities per 10,000 persons for 15-24 year olds and very old males aged 80 and over at 3.8 fatalities per 10,000 persons. This is at least twice the average total fatality rate of 1.5 for males. The highest rate for females is 1.1 fatalities per 10,000 persons (over twice the average total fatality rate for females) for ages 15 to 19.

Where do these fatalities occur?
There are more male fatalities than female fatalities for both urban (metropolitan Adelaide) and rural areas. The difference is greater in urban areas. While 72% of fatalities in rural areas are male, 77% of fatalities in metropolitan Adelaide are male.

During the 10-year period 1994 to 2003, there have been on average 69 male fatalities per year in rural areas compared to 46 male fatalities per year in urban areas.

Which road user types are affected?
Figure 2 shows again that males feature predominantly overall by road user groups.

Figure 2 – Average number of fatalities and serious injuries per year by road user, 2001-2003

Males are significantly over-represented in those categories where the road user is most likely to be in control of their own situation, i.e. drivers, motorcyclists and to a lesser extent cyclists and pedestrians. This could be a reflection of risk taking behaviour in males. High-risk behaviours such as drink driving and speeding play a major role in serious crashes.

Table 3 – Average number of fatalities per year in SA, 1999-2003 and ration of males to females


Table 3 highlights that overall males are more likely to suffer a fatality.

The most striking difference is that the male: female ratio recorded for fatalities involving motorcyclists and cyclists, where there are exceptionally higher numbers of males compared to females. These findings must be at least partly attributable to exposure; that is more males than females riding motorcycles and bicycles.

Blood Alcohol Involvement
On average males have a much higher number of reported incidences of drink driving related fatal and serious casualty crashes compared to females.

An average of 21 male drivers or riders are involved in a fatal crash with a blood alcohol level above the legal limit. This is compared to females who average 3 fatalities per year.