Road crashes involving animals in Australia.

Each year in Australia many thousands of collisions occur between motor vehicles and animals, resulting in considerable vehicle repair costs, injury to persons, and loss of animal life. This paper reviews animal-related road crashes in Australia and presents data from the in-depth Rural and Remote Road Safety Study in North Queensland for serious casualties (n=33) resulting from direct impact with an animal or swerving to avoid an animal on public roads. These crash types accounted for 5.5% of all eligible on-road serious casualties in the study and, hence, are considered to be an important issue that requires particular attention within rural and remote areas. Kangaroos and wallabies were the predominant species involved in these crashes (44.8%). Consistent with international studies, night-time travel was found to be a significant risk factor when comparing animal-related crashes to other serious injury crashes in the study. There were also a significantly higher proportion of motorcyclists (51.7%) than other vehicle occupants involved in animal-related serious crashes compared to all other serious injury crashes. Data matching to official Government records found underreporting of animal-related crashes to be an issue of concern. These findings are discussed in terms of countermeasures suitable for the Australian context and the need for consistent crash reporting across jurisdictions.