KEY INSIGHTS

• Road deaths per capita:
  • Dropped by more than 2/3 from 1991 to 2013:
    • 1991 = 0.019% per capita (651 deaths, 3.495 million population, 1 in ~5,000)
    • 2013 = 0.006% per capita (253 deaths, 4.447 million population, 1 in 17,500).
  • Have remained ~0.006 to 0.007% per capita between 2011 to 2022 (1 in 13,000 to 15,000, or 67 to 77 per million population).
•  Remember that:
  • There were several Covid lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, especially in Auckland, where driving was radically reduced.
  • New Zealand’s population has rapidly grown, especially from 2014 to 2020. The population was ~3.5 million in 1991 and is now over 5.1 million in 2022. As such, there are a lot more drivers and vehicles on the road, so per capita is a far superior metric than total road deaths alone.
  • These figures are provisional and may include deaths or crashes which are subsequently excluded. Reasons for exclusion include the crash being intentional (suicide, homicide), due to a medical event, or not occurring on a public road (e.g. a driveway). 54 such road deaths have been excluded from the total road death count for the year to date up to November 20th.

KEY QUESTIONS

1. Should driving speed limits be decreased, increased, or stay the same?
2. Why did road deaths drop so suddenly up to 2013 and then plateau?

…

Have your say

• LinkedIn 

…

Full data analysis
Please contact us if you would like the full analysis.

…

Other notes:

• We started the data series at 1991 because Stats NZ population data sets start at 1991. We have asked them for an accurate population data set going back to 1921 to match the road death data. 32 years is a fair comparison period of recent history, but we would like to share all available data.
• The 2022 road deaths figure used the 305 count to the end of October (304 days, 83% of the year) and the 2018-2019 monthly data (before Covid lockdowns) to work out that November and December typically count for 10% of annual road deaths in each month. This produced the 383 forecast for the 2022 year. We cross-checked this November 2022 estimate of 39 total road deaths vs the 28 actual road deaths to the end of November 20th, and felt this was a fair estimate.
• The 2022 population estimate used the Stats NZ 5,117,400 population estimate to the end of December 2021 and the 5,127,400 estimate to the end of September 2022 to work out a 5,124,067 mean population for the 2022 year.
• All numbers are provisional and subject to revision.

Thank you to the Factors who helped pull this together.

…

SOURCES:

• Road deaths 1921-2020 = https://www.transport.govt.nz/statistics-and-insights/safety-road-deaths/death-on-nz-roads-since-1921/
• Road deaths 2018-2022 by month = https://www.transport.govt.nz/statistics-and-insights/safety-road-deaths/year-to-date-road-deaths/

Data published by Ministry of Transport
(c) Crown Copyright
Licensed for use under the creative commons attribution licence (BY) 4.0

• Population estimates = http://infoshare.stats.govt.nz/ – Table: Population > Population Estimates – DPE > Estimated Resident Population by Age and Sex (1991+) (Annual-Dec). [Use the “mean year ended” figure to get an average for the year. Use the “as at” option to get an estimate for a point in time.]

This work is based on/includes Stats NZ’s data which are licensed by Stats NZ for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

…

Did we make a mistake, or have you got smarter data?  Let us know.