An astonishing revelation

Essentially, ‘road safety’ analyses based on official injury statistics are worthless, because the figures are inaccurate. Road danger is MUCH WORSE than currently recorded.

The Department uses data collected by the police to measure its performance on road safety but research suggests that serious injuries are under-recorded.

“The under-reporting of road traffic accident injuries has been a problem for some time. The department has carried out work to determine the mismatch between the police data on road traffic accident injuries it uses to measure its performance on road safety and the often very different data provided by hospitals. The department has now identified the scale of the mismatch: some 230,000 casualties were reported to the police in 2008 against an estimated true figure of around 800,000.

“It is extremely important that the department now devise a formula for adjusting the police data so that we get a more accurate picture each year of the department’s progress against its targets.”