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Aboriginal road deaths are 'much higher' than calculated
"Officially" road deaths involving aboriginals are currently at levels almost twice that of Australia's non-Indigenous population. But problems collecting the statistics suggest that in reality the rate could be three times as high nationally and four times as high in Western Australia.
The figures have come to light in a discussion paper prepared by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau for a meeting of the Indigenous Road Safety Forum.
For WA the new estimate is also higher than that suggested by a bureau research paper released two years ago. (See TransScan October 2002 p18.)
Then it was indicated that the road death rate among the State's Aboriginal road users was three times that of non-Aboriginals. Now using ABS statistics the bureau has found that nationwide between 1999 and 2002, the road fatality rate for Aboriginals was 16.0 per 100,000 Indigenous people compared with 8.9 per 100,000 for the non-Indigenous population.
But the bureau is convinced that widespread under reporting of the ethnic origin of the victims is disguising the true extent of the problem.
"The Indigenous road fatality rate in Western Australia is perhaps four times the rate for the non-Indigenous population," says the study.
The study says doctors and funeral directors are usually responsible for completing death certificates but if they are not aware of the indigenous status of the victim, they may be "reluctant or unable" to ask the relatives. The study found that Aboriginal pedestrians figured most predominantly in the fatality statistics - particularly in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Queensland.
Both male and female Aboriginals had a significantly greater chance of being involved in a fatality than their non-Indigenous counterparts.
The bureau used detailed NT coronial reports to build up a profile of the types of crashes and risk factors involved for Aboriginals. These showed there were predominantly two types of crashes involving Aboriginal road deaths - collisions with pedestrians and single vehicle rural crashes.
Many of the pedestrian deaths had involved Aboriginals standing or lying on roads. Most of the time the incidents occur at night and mainly involve males between 20 and 29 and females between 30 and 39.
The study says that in the NT, both for Aboriginals and non-Indigenous people, alcohol is the greatest risk factor - and this was particularly the case among Aboriginal pedestrians killed on the roads.
For rural Aboriginals the risks are compounded by environmental factors like being exposed to greater travel distances, high speeds, poor road quality and delays in gaining medical treatment in remote areas.
For example while it was found that ambulances did not attend 3% of NT fatalities involving non-Indigenous people, the figure rose to 35% for when Aboriginals were involved.
