Connection between wildlife and road casualties unrecognised in Vision Zero 2050
In this, the third of six articles reviewing ‘Wildlife road kills versus Vision Zero 2050’ freelance journalist Patrick Francis interrogates the road crash statistics generated by numerous federal and state government departments for clues to why millions of wildlife become road kill each year despite tens of thousands of yellow wildlife warning signs installed across the rural and regional road network.
The Federal and state governments have Road Safety Strategies in place up to 2030 and to 2050 (Vision Zero) for actions to reduce fatalities and injuries to vehicle occupants as well as to unprotected road users such as pedestrians and cyclists. But in all the strategies, wildlife as contributing factor to collisions are rarely, if ever mentioned. This is despite the fact that a range of organisations have data to show wildlife vehicle collisions are an important contributor to fatalities and injuries on regional roads either directly or via run-off road incidents. That data is available from:
* Insurance company vehicle wildlife collision claims stating tens of thousands of collisions with wildlife happen each year.
* Wildlife Victoria statistics showing vehicle collisions with wildlife are increasing year on year, particularly in peri-urban districts.
* Hospital trauma research.
* Transport for NSW which documents “One in every 41 casualty crashes on (NSW) country roads involves a vehicle hitting an animal”.
* Road ecologists’ research: “Roads can be deadly, not only for wildlife but also for people. A shocking number of humans are killed daily throughout the world because of collisions with animals” Professor Emeritus Darryl Jones.
Figure 1: Wildlife vehicle collision data is published by vehicle insurance companies, rescue NGOs and in medical trauma research but is not recognised in the National and state Road Safety Strategies and by federal and state government transport departments responsible for road safety.
Personal injury lawyers “What’s My Claim Worth” contend “collisions with animals make up 5% of all motor vehicle accidents within Australia per year. However, of this five percent, 90% are collisions with kangaroos (figure 1). Not only is this a huge percentage of vehicle and animal collisions, but kangaroos are also a large animal, with plenty of potential to cause serious damage to you and your vehicle.”
National wildlife/animal vehicle crash data is not recorded by any Federal government transport authority/department or is not readily available. Transport for NSW is an exception, in its 2022 /Road Traffic Casualty crashes in New South Wales’ data there were 11,963 vehicle crashes incurring 14,841 casualties. When 5% are animal vehicle collisions that amounts to around 600 wildlife collisions in NSW for the year.
The federal and state government departments responsible for developing strategies to reduce vehicle occupants and unprotected road users from death and injury have large amounts of data highlighting what is happening on roads but few take wildlife collisions into account. Here are some examples.
Road Trauma Australia 2022 statistics (most recently published) show the majority of vehicle occupant fatalities:
* happen on non-urban roads;
* that low traffic volume local roads have as many fatalities as arterial roads;
* that single vehicle run-off road accidents have double the fatality rate of other collision fatalities;
* that deaths by posted speed limit at 60 – 70km/h are about 15 times higher than deaths on roads with a speed limit equal to or less than 40km/h and 3 times higher than deaths on roads with a 50km/h speed limit, figure 2.
Figure 2A: Road Trauma Australia 2022 statistics highlight non-urban areas, local rural roads, speed above 50km/h and single vehicles running off roads are associated with highest vehicle occupant fatalities. There is no connection or reference made to wildlife being a contributor to the fatalities. Source: Australian Government Department of Infrastructure, Transport, RD, C&A Statistical Report 2023.
The Australian Road Safety Foundation promotes an annual ‘Rural Roads Safety Month’ in September. It’s infographic for 2023 road deaths on rural roads highlights that most road fatalities each year occur on rural roads and speed is involved, figure 2B.
Figure 2B: In 2023 64% of Australia’s fatalities occur on rural roads. A yellow kangaroo warning sign is associated with this infographic. Source: Australian Road Safety Foundation September 2024.
The Federal Government’s Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts houses the Office of Road Safety established in 2019 “to co-ordinate and facilitate the national efforts to eliminate road trauma in Australia. …the Office works with state, territory and local governments …to achieve our long-term aim that no one is killed or seriously injured on Australia’s roads.”
The Office states its role involves “implementing the National Road Safety Strategy 2021 – 30 and engaging with the Australian public to improve road safety for all Australians”. The Office’s National Road Safety Annual Progress Report 2023 has not been updated and provides fatality data to 2022 and hospitalised injury data up to 2021. The Safety Performance Indicators (SPI) such as number of road crash fatalities and crash fatality rate per capita to 2022 were not on (see Article 4) target for the National Strategy 2021 – 2030.
The Office provides searchable data for road fatalities which has been provided to it from each state’s transport department. When Annual Road Deaths causes are filtered for regional areas, non-urban, run-off road crashes, posted speed limit and road type, it shows there have been 100 – 150 fatalities annually since 2010. Speed above 90km/h stands out as the major contributor. Local roads have a disproportionate number of fatalities in comparison to highways and arterial roads.
As for regional pedestrian deaths, speed above 80km/h and local roads are the major associated causes for fatalities, figure 3.
Figure 3: Local roads are one of most dangerous road types for vehicle occupants and pedestrians. Despite this, shire council engineers seem to contend the default 100km/h speed limit is equitable for all road users. Sources: Data: Engineers Australia and Road Trauma Australia; photos Patrick Francis.
The Office of Road Safety Victorian data for single vehicle fatalities shows a 28% increase year on year to April 2024 and the highest annual fatality rate since 2015 with 154 deaths in 2023. Single vehicle crash occupant fatalities are dominated by posted speed above 90km/h, figure 4.
Figure 4: The Office of Road Safety Dashboard data demonstrates that single vehicles running off the road and crashing into an object is a major source of road fatalities and the rate increases dramatically as speed increases over 50km/h. The Office makes no reference to why vehicles are colliding with roadside trees or hardware, incidents involving wildlife are not included on the Dashboard. Source: The Office of Road Safety.
Victoria’s Transport Accident Commission (TAC) also has a dashboard to interrogate road crash statistics. In single vehicles running off a straight road or off a curve in rural Victoria, 269 occupants were killed in the four years from October 2020 to October 2024, figure 5.
Figure 5: Victoria’s Transport Accident Commission (TAC) statistics show 269 vehicle occupants have died in single vehicle crashes with 211 dying in run off road crashes in rural Victoria over four years since October 2020. Source TAC.
The TAC annual reports or its dashboard do not mention wildlife as contributing to any vehicle collisions or single vehicle run off road crashes. Given the number of single vehicle fatalities associated with runoff road collisions with trees or hardware and the thousands of wildlife warning signs along roads, an explanation for possible wildlife involvement would be reasonable. There is no mention or advice for vehicle drivers approaching wildlife signs, not even a suggestion to slow down.
What is interesting about the Victorian TAC fatality data is that the fatalities keep happening despite the government assessing all state roads based on Transport Victoria implementing the Safe System’s ‘Vision Zero by 2050’ strategy. According to the Federal Office of Road Safety, the Victorian government is using a range of road risk rating tools:
* The Network Safety Plan (NSP), a framework that will determine what the Victorian road network should look like to achieve ‘Zero by 2050’. It seems wildlife vehicle collisions are not considered as a risk in a NSP.
* AusRAP (Road Assessment Program) risk ratings. Last done in 2014 across about 19,000km of the state’s 25,000km arterial road network. AusRoads oversees AusRAP which is a method used to identify, manage and improve road infrastructure, roadside features and speed limits to reduce road trauma. State and local government engineers can use it to produce crash risk maps, road star ratings and network safety plans. According to AusRoads AusRAP uses “up to 78 distinct road attributes for each 100-metre length of road and corresponding roadside environment are collected to form road attribute datasets for analysis”. It seems wildlife on land adjacent to roads, on road verges and crossing roads is not one of the attributes collected in AusRAP risk ratings.
* Infrastructure Risk Rating (IRR) provides risk scores and categories for roads using a methodology recommended by Austroads. The IRR is used to review speed limits on high risk, high speed mobility rural roads. It seems wildlife vehicle collisions are not considered as a risk in IRR.
* Collective Risk and Intersection Risk for local and state managed roads. This is used to predict fatal and serious injury (FSI) based on injury crash occurrence. It seems wildlife vehicle collisions are not considered as a risk.
Figure 6: Despite Transport Victoria using a range of road risk rating tools as part of its Road Safety Strategy 2021 – 2030, fatalities are above its annual target and increasing. Wildlife vehicle collisions on regional roads with posted and default 100km/h speed limits where most fatalities happen are not considered by the department’s engineers as a risk factor. Source: Australian Automobile Association Analysis September 2024.
Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE) released a report in 2020 reviewing vehicle occupant fatality and serious injury rates for run-off road crashes in Australia 2016 to 2020. It found over the five years run-off road crashes accounted for 20% of all reported crashes and 39% of all fatality crashes. In comparison head-on crashes accounted for 12% of all reported crashes and 20% of all fatal crashes.
The connection between run-off road crashes and drivers avoiding vehicle wildlife collisions seems more apparent with the statistic that 50% of fatal run-off road crashed happened on remote and rural roads with a speed limit of at least 100km/h. The same roads where tens of thousands of yellow wildlife warning signs are installed, figure 7.
Figure 7: Percentage of fatal run off road and non-run off crashes versus speed zone in Regional and Remote Australia 2016 – 2020. Despite the thousands of wildlife warning signs on these roads and state transport authorities advice about avoiding swerving to miss colliding with an animal BITRE does not include wildlife as a possible contributor to run-off road fatalities. Sources: Graphs – Run-off road crashes in Australia 2016 – 2020 BITRE; Inset right Transport for NSW; Inset photo Patrick Francis.
AAMI insurance points out that around 40% of drivers are likely to swerve rather than hit an animal, so it is highly likely some of the run-off road crashes reported by BITRE are a consequence of swerving (see article 1). While some state transport authorities advise drivers that it is better to hit an animal if the vehicle cannot be stopped or slowed in time to avoid a collision rather than swerve, BITRE’s report makes no mention of wildlife as a contributor to run-off road crashes. It does not include any reference to swerving to avoid a vehicle animal collision.
Despite making no reference to wildlife vehicle collisions the Report highlights that the vast majority of fatal run-off road crashes happen in speed zones 100km/h or above in regional and remote Australia. “When looking at fatal crashes only, run-off road crashes are associated more strongly with higher speed-limit zones (≥ 100km/h) than are non-run-off road crashes. This association with higher speed zones can be examined further by categorising the crash counts also by remoteness area. In major city locations, all speed zones above 80 km/h are associated with fatal run-off road crashes. In regional locations, only zones posted 100km/h or above have this association, and in remote areas, run-off road crashes occur more frequently at zones 110km/h or above”, figure 7.
BITRE contributes run-off road crashes to a range of factors other than wildlife such as road alignment, lighting at dusk and dawn, darkness, road surface wet/dry and risky driver behaviours such as driving with alcohol/drugs and not wearing seat belts. It is interesting that the analysis of road conditions and weather impacts on run-off road crashes over the four years across Victoria, NSW and Queensland shows most happen on straight roads, during daylight, on dry road surface and during fine weather, figure 8.
Figure 8: The BITRE analysis of run-off road crashes causing fatalities and serious injuries across Queensland, NSW and Victoria over four years found they occur mostly on straight sections of flat dry road, during daylight and fine weather. Is there an unpredictable contributing factor being missed in the analysis? Photo: Patrick Francis.
The Centre for Accident Research & Road Safety Queensland which is a joint venture initiative of the Motor Accident Insurance Commission and Queensland University of Technology evaluated the framework for the Queensland Road Safety Strategy 2015 – 2021. There is no mention of animal vehicle collisions as a safety risk for vehicle occupants on Queensland’s roads. Similarly the Queensland Road Safety Strategy 2021 – 2030 does not include any reference to vehicle animal collisions as an avenue for injury and death to vehicle occupants. This is despite two thirds of road fatalities in Queensland occur within regional and remote areas.
Road Crash Information System (RCIS) is a Victorian government on line database providing crash data from Victorian road incidents dating back to 1987. The data is sourced from reports made by police who attend incidents where casualties happen. What sets RCIS apart from other state government department statistics is inclusion of reason for the incident such as “struck animal” and “struck fixed object”.
RCIS can be interrogated for incidents involving “struck animals” and how vehicle occupants were affected by including an injury assessment if serious enough for hospitalisation or if fatal. Other useful data is whether or not the vehicle runs off the road and if so, the type of object hit, the speed zone, the local government area, light conditions, and road geometry. It means the Victorian government has the data about injuries and fatalities to vehicle occupants as a result of colliding with an animal or a fixed roadside object such as a tree or pole/post/guard rail.
The known data from police reports about animals struck on Victoria’s roads and reasons for single vehicle run-off road crashes is not included as a component of road safety statistics either in Victorian government departments road safety reports or in federal department reports or in the National and Victorian road safety strategies 2021 – 2030.
Table 1: Police reports for road crashes in Victoria 2012 to 2023
| 26,007 | Collision with Fixed Object | 15% |
| 1,763 | Collision with some other object | 1% |
| 110,750 | Collision with vehicle | 65% |
| 1,135 | Fall from or in moving vehicle | 1% |
| 7,178 | No collision and no object struck | 4% |
| 174 | Other accident | 0% |
| 1,809 | Struck animal | 1% |
| 14,115 | Struck pedestrian | 8% |
| 8,059 | Vehicle overturned (no collision) | 5% |
| 170,990 | 100% |
Table One suggests an average of 164 crashes per year in Victoria involve an animal yet insurance company vehicle wildlife collision claims are estimated at around 20,000 in 2023. Apart from the direct wildlife collisions there is also 2167 run-off road collisions with fixed object per year associated with swerving on rural roads. These are responsible for multiple casualties and fatalities. Based on AAMI insurance data which reveals around 40% of drivers are likely to swerve rather than hit an animal it would seem reasonable to assume many of these single vehicle run-off road hit object collisions are wildlife related.
The figures in Table 1 only relate to crashes reported to police. Data from Insurance companies and vehicle repairers is needed to show the full social and economic impact of collisions with wildlife both to the individual and the economy.
In NSW vehicle insurance companies’ wildlife collision claims are estimated at 20,000 in 2023 with the vast majority involving kangaroos. Transport for NSW Annual Road Traffic Casualty Crashes 2022 reports “Country roads accounted for 40% of all casualty crashes (5936 casualties) but 67 percent of fatal crashes”, yet only 108 are described as animals/wildlife collisions and only 63 involved hitting a kangaroo or wallaby. The 108 figure is at odds with Transport for NSW’s 2021 Infographic “Take care around animals on country roads” which states that 1 in 41 (2.4%) of casualty crashes on country roads involve animals.
If that is the case the 2022 wildlife vehicle collisions causing casualties would be around 142. Its current “Take care” document has deleted this reference to casualty wildlife vehicle collisions? When asked no explanation was provided as to why.
Given the accident reports analysed come from various sources and may be incomplete this discrepancy is not surprising. For example Transport for NSW Road Traffic Casualty Crashes states on page 17 “Of the 9,711 hospitalisations (from road crashes) in 2022, 41% were matched to a police crash report. Does this suggest the information was insufficient to produce a match, that drivers and passengers didn’t realise the extent of their injuries so were hospitalised later or that police crash reports significantly underestimate the number of crashes?
When all vehicle insurance companies wildlife collision claims are considered for NSW, approximately 20,000 in 2023, the 108 hit animals causing casualties seems incredibly low given country roads with 100km/h speed limit account for 40% of all casualty crashes and 67% of all fatal crashes across the state.
It should be noted that apart from AAMI three other national vehicle insurance companies (Budget Direct, WFI, and RACV) would not provide animal vehicle collisions claims data for this review. The Insurance Council of Australia said it did not have data relating to animal vehicle collision insurance claims and had no opinions on strategies to reduce these collisions including on the use of roadside wildlife warning signs.
The Transport for NSW casualty crash data involving animals is very similar to the Victoria Police casualty crash data (Table 1) available on a Victorian Government web site but not analysed in detail as it has been by the NSW authority. The posted Victoria Police casualty data between 2012 and 2023 shows an average 151 casualty animal vehicle collisions each year. These are crashes which involve serious and moderate vehicle occupant injury and fatalities.
Take home message
Figure 9. While most Federal and state Transport departments make little reference to wildlife vehicle collisions in crash statistics when they do there is an unexplained wide gap between their data and insurance company wildlife vehicle collisions claims, with Transport departments considerably underestimating the number of crashes.
Next article:
Safe System Principles and Vision Zero 2050 neglect vehicle wildlife collision consequences.
References:
What’s My Claim Worth Personal Injury Legal Panel | Expert Representation – WMCW
Office of Road Safety, National Road Safety Strategy data
Office of Road Safety 2024 , National Road Safety Annual Progress Report 2023
Transport for NSW “Road Traffic Casualty crashes in New South Wales – statistical statement for the year ended 31 December 2022”.
Victorian government Victorian Road crash police data 2012 to 2023
www.vic.gov.au/crash-statistics
Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE) Road Deaths Australia 2024
Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE) Run-off road crashes in Australia, 2016-2020
Road Trauma Australia
Austroads, AusRAP Road Safety Star Rating
Australian Road Safety Foundation Infographics September 2024
