Considering pedestrian falls in Road Safety Audits

Pedestrian falls are not recorded in crash data and could be forgotten when undertaking road safety audits. Falls are, however, recorded in Hospital Admissions Data. In Western Australia this data has indicated that:

• Falls were the leading cause of injury hospitalisations and emergency department attendances in 2018, contributing to 28% of all injury hospitalisations and 16% of all injury emergency department attendances.
• In 2017 falls-related incidents were the second highest cause of an injury-related fatality in WA, contributing to 15% of all injury fatalities.
• Between 1 January 2017 and 31 December 2017 there were 329 falls-related fatalities, at an age-standardised rate of 11.3 fatalities per 100,000 population.
• There were 27,372 falls-related hospitalisations in 2018, equating to 970.4 hospitalisations per 100,000 Western Australians. On average these falls-related hospitalisations resulted in 6.3 days in hospital per admission.

​A common cause of falls on the road network are trips associated with uneven surfaces (subsidence, root damage, poor construction) and slips (slippery surfaces and seeds or nuts from trees and bushes).
Looking out for these hazards when undertaking audits and including them in the audit report can help reduce the incidence of falls on our paths and the associated injuries, hospitalisations and fatalities.