THE NUMBER OF fatalities involving buses in Australia during the past 12 months year to date ending in December, 2018, has recorded a 22.2 per cent decrease, according to the latest statistics over-viewing such incidents involving heavy vehicles overall.
In the past 12-month period to December 2018, 23 people died in 21 fatal crashes involving buses. This marked a bus-related fatal-crash decrease of 22.2 per cent compared with the corresponding period one year earlier, from 27 to 21 crashes. It, however, marked an increase by an average of 4.7 per cent per year over the three years to December 2018, according to the Fatal Heavy Vehicle Crashes Australia Quarterly Bulletin, October – December, 2018.
Complied by The Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE), for the Federal Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities, the information also examined the fatalities involving trucks.
On this note, during the 12 months to the end of December 2018, 154 people died from 136 fatal crashes involving heavy trucks. These included 89 deaths from 78 crashes involving articulated trucks, 74 deaths from 65 crashes involving heavy rigid trucks and nine deaths from seven crashes involving both a heavy rigid truck and an articulated truck.
DEFINITIONS
The Bulletin makes the following distinctions to aid the interpretation of data, which is also broken down into national and state by state assessments. These are:
- A bus is – a motor vehicle constructed for the carriage of passengers which has at least 10 seats, including the driver’s seat;
- A crash is – any apparently unpremeditated event reported to police, or other relevant authority, and resulting in death, injury or property damage attributable to the movement of a road vehicle on a public road;
- A road death or fatality – “a person who dies within 30 days of a crash as a result of injuries received in that crash; and
- Fatal crash – a crash for which there is at least one death.
ABOUT BRITE
The Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) provides economic analysis, research and statistics on infrastructure, transport and regional development issues to inform Australian Government policy development and wider community understanding, it states.
BITRE is part of the Policy and Research Division of the Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities.
BITRE holds unique aviation, maritime, road and rail transport data collections, which are made available in a number of publication series. BITRE also publishes the results of individual research projects, it states.
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