Brussels, 10/04/2012 (Agence Europe) - Although the last decade has been marked by a pronounced fall in the number of road accidents in Europe (and in OECD countries), the effort must be kept up. To this end, the permanent International Traffic Safety Data and Analysis Group (IRTAD) insists that it is important to have a better understanding of injury crashes and of the specificity of those crashes for defining serious injury.
In the light of data gathered over the past decades, the working group underlines that road accidents have significantly fallen in number over the past three years in Hungary, Denmark and Ireland, compared to the past 15 years. Germany and the Netherlands have managed to reduce the risk of fatal accidents six-fold since the 70s, and Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden, Slovenia and Portugal have cut the risk by half.
Statistics are encouraging for these European countries, but more lives must be saved on Europe's roads. IRTAD acknowledges that national policies are bearing fruit especially when it comes to wearing safety belts, drink driving and speed. It welcomes the fact that the use of mobile phones, which distract drivers, is being taken into consideration in many OECD countries. To achieve greater road safety, IRTAD recommends that there be a better understanding of the real number of road accidents, and above all that there should be a universal definition of the severity of accidents. Currently, each country has a different way of reporting the severity of accidents, and different ways of setting out the figures.
Police data should be completed by data gathered by the medical services, with the latter being responsible for judging the severity of injuries. Injuries must be taken into account in order to complete information compiled on fatal accidents. Road accidents should be compared to other major causes of fatalities, such as malaria and AIDS. Furthermore, the cost of road accidents, especially the medical cost, should be taken into account to cover future disabilities and the cost-benefit ratio of road safety campaigns. The working group's recommendations prevail for 32 countries out of the 34 OECD member nations, the large majority of which are EU member states. They will largely inspire not only the national governments of the EU27 but also policies conducted at European level. (MD/transl.jl)