Premium
Fuel Prices and Road Deaths in Australia
Author(s) -
Burke Paul J.,
Teame Ataklti
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
economic papers: a journal of applied economics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.245
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1759-3441
pISSN - 0812-0439
DOI - 10.1111/1759-3441.12207
Subject(s) - death toll , toll , track (disk drive) , road traffic , geography , transport engineering , engineering , economics , socioeconomics , medicine , mechanical engineering , immunology
After years of general progress in reducing Australia's road death toll, road deaths increased in 2015 and 2016, reaching 1293 per annum. These were also years of relatively cheap fuel following the dramatic decline in the world oil price in late 2014. This study uses monthly data to model the number of road deaths in Australia. Our estimates suggest that low fuel prices have contributed to knocking Australia off track for meeting its 2020 road safety target. The paper also provides a discussion of other factors that may have contributed to the rise in Australia's road death toll.