Comparing Serious Injury & Fatal Crashes (Completed)
The AA Research Foundation wanted to better understand whether some circumstances and injuries from car crashes were more likely to lead to deaths rather than serious injuries.
2017 study
In 2017, the NZAA Research Foundation commissioned a study to examine 300 crashes from 2015/16 to understand how serious injury crashes differ from fatal crashes.
Focusing primarily on light‑vehicle crashes, it applied a Safe System framework to identify the role of roads and roadsides, speeds, vehicles, and road user behaviour, and showed that fatal crashes were more likely to occur when multiple system failures aligned, particularly in high‑speed environments and where roadside objects were struck.
> Read the 2017 report (PDF, 3 MB)
2026 Update
The 2026 study took a similar Safe System approach and analysed 200 fatal crashes from the 2024 calendar - representing around 80% of all fatalities from that year. This latest analysis found that:
- Multiple system failures are the norm:
Almost all fatal crashes (99%) involved more than one Safe System failure, with over half involving failures across all four pillars. - Road and speed environments play a critical role:
High‑speed rural roads without median or roadside protection feature heavily, particularly in run‑off‑road and head‑on crashes. Many fatal crashes occurred where speed limits did not align with how roads were actually used. - Vehicle safety remains a significant factor:
Vehicles in which fatalities occurred were often older than the national fleet average, lacked basic and advanced safety features, and were frequently lighter than the colliding vehicle. Vehicles striking pedestrians and cyclists often had poor protection ratings for vulnerable road users. - Road user behaviours are common, but rarely act alone:
Intoxication (alcohol and drugs), speeding, distraction, licence non‑compliance, and seatbelt non‑use were widespread. However, even crashes involving reckless or illegal behaviour typically coincided with wider system failures. - Distinct fatal crash profiles persist over time:
Key crash types identified in the 2017 study remain prominent, including single‑vehicle rural run‑off‑road crashes and head‑on crashes between light vehicles, alongside urban crashes involving vulnerable road users - suggesting enduring systemic issues rather than isolated behavioural problems.
Page last updated: 16 April 2026