Wheeled motor sports

Wheeled motor sports include car racing, motorbike racing and jumping, all-terrain vehicle riding and go-carting.

An estimated 210,000 Australians aged 15 and over participated in wheeled motor sports in 2019–20.  There were 3,730 injury hospitalisations attributed to wheeled motor sports—3,390 male and 340 female. This was 50 less than the year before. For those aged 15 and over, the rate of hospitalisation was about 1,410 per 100,000 participants.

The highest number of hospitalisations was in the 15–19 age group (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Age distribution of injury hospitalisations from wheeled motor sports, 2019–20

Column graph showing the age distribution of injury hospitalisations.

Source: AIHW NHMD.

For more detail, see data table A14.

Almost 6 in 10 of these hospitalisations were fractures (57%) (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Injury hospitalisations from wheeled motor sports, by type of injury as a proportion, 2019–20

Bar graph showing the proportion of injury hospitalisations by main type of injury.

Note: Type of injury is derived from the principal diagnosis.
Source: AIHW NHMD.

For more detail, see data table A25.

There were 181 hospitalisations for concussion—155 male and 26 female.

The main injury was most commonly to the shoulder and arm region (26%) or the hip and leg region (25%) (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Injury hospitalisations from wheeled motor sports, by body part injured, as a proportion, 2019–20

Outline of a person with body regions labelled, marked with the percentage of hospitalised injuries for each region.

Note: Body part injured is derived from the principal diagnosis.
Source: AIHW NHMD.

For more detail, see data table A26.

Where the cause of injury was specified, it was most often a road transport accident (89%) (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Cause of injury as a proportion when specified, injury hospitalisations from wheeled motor sports, 2019–20

Bar graph showing the proportion of hospitalisations by cause of injury when specified.

Source: AIHW NHMD.

For more detail, see data table A27.

Seasonality and COVID-19

Injury hospitalisations from wheeled motor sports have a relatively steady seasonal pattern compared with other sports. There appears to have been a brief interruption caused by COVID-19 in April 2020 (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Injury hospitalisations from wheeled motor sports by month of admission, 2017–18 to 2019–20

Line graph with 3 lines for 3 financial years of hospitalisations by month of admission, illustrating the dip in hospitalisations in April 2020.

Notes
1. Months have been standardised to 31 days.
2. A scale up factor has been applied to June admissions to account for cases not yet separated.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.  

For more detail, see data table B3.