Accident data under-reporting and correction factor

4 Accident data under-reporting and correction factor 

Under recording is another important problem. The basis of accident data in developing countries is data recorded by the police in each country. The police do not often record detailed information of the accident. This is because of inadequate reporting and untrained personnel. Tessmer (1999) has compared crash statistics in OECD countries and it has shown that there is a problem of under-recording by the police in most OECD countries. Some injuries recorded by the police papers are not shown in the computer files. Police have no medical or engineering background, so there is no accurate information. In addition, there is lack of information and rehable data that recorded by the pohce. 

The number of fatahties in accidents cannot be directly compared internationally since the individual defiiutions of road accident fatality differ widely. Most European countries use the standard of dead within 30 days of the accident occurred. The international fatahty data should all be adjusted to the 30-days defiiution. Most developing countries use the definition of deaths as on the spot or within 24 hours. A correction factor has to be developed to adapt these data to the 30-days definition. 

Under reporting of injuries is known to be even worse than with fatahties. According to a global study by Jacobs et al, (2000) only approximately 50 percent of road injuries are reported from road accidents. There was an estimation of 100 injuries for every fatality in the HDCs and 30 injuries in the LDCs. 

---