World Day of Remembrance of Road Traffic Victims, 15th Nov. 2009

NEWS RELEASE
Embargoed until 12.11.2009
At least 300,000 people are seriously injured on EU roads every year
Governments and EU called to adopt serious injuries reduction targets
Today, thanks to more protective vehicles and roads, better emergency response and medical progress, many road deaths are prevented, but survivors remain and many are seriously injured.
European and national decision makers should not neglect this less -publicised part of the real picture by referring only to road deaths, urges ETSC in its 15th Road Safety PIN Flash published today. The report is being launched in conjunction with the World Day of Remembrance of Road Traffic Victims taking place every 3rd Sunday of November, falling this year on the 15th of November.
In addition to the 39,000 people killed in road collisions in the European Union, about 1,700,000 people are recorded as injured in police reports each year, among them 300,000 seriously. For every road death in the EU, at least 44 road injuries are recorded, of which eight are serious.
Yet, although serious injuries tend to be better reported than slight, not all serious injuries are recorded by the police. In Sweden, for every road death, there are 23 road collision survivors treated in hospital, against just 8 serious injuries recorded by the police.
EU comparisons are hampered because both the levels of injury reporting and national definitions of a serious injury vary greatly among countries. The magnitude of underreporting undermines proper allocation of resources to preventive measures. Improving the quality of data about seriously injured survivors of road collisions is key to designing more effective safety policies.
Sweden is taking the lead in linking police and hospital data and wishes its number of seriously injured recorded by the hospitals to be used for international comparison. Ascurrent EU Presidency holder, Sweden is in a prime position to encourage other Member States to benefit from its experience.
“ETSC believes the new EU Road Safety Action Programme should include challenging targets for the reduction in serious injuries alongside a target for continued reduction in deaths,” said ETSC Executive Director Antonio Avenoso. “ Each country should aim to reduce serious injuries, according to its own national definition, at the same pace as deaths. In parallel, the EU should work towards the adoption of a common definition of serious injuries.”
In 14 EU countries using a similar definition of what a serious injury is, deaths and serious injuries have decreased at broadly the same pace since 2001. However, the situation differs considerably from country to country. While in Romania, Norway, Hungary and Spain changes in road deaths and serious injuries followed almost a similar pace, in Luxembourg, France, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Sweden reductions in road deaths exceeded by far the reductions in recorded serious injuries, whereas in Slovenia, Latvia, Ireland and Greece injuries decreased faster than deaths.
The full report can be downloaded here
See also the WHO message for World Day by Dr. Etienne Krug (Director of the Department of Violence and Injury Prevention and Disability) here

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