Road safety: EU database on road traffic accidents

KEY POINTS

EU countries must:

• record statistics on road traffic accidents involving at least one vehicle and causing deaths or injuries taking place in their country;
• pass on those data each year to the European Commission (Eurostat).

The European Commission must ensure that the data received are disseminated, that the database functions properly and decides on the conditions for access to statistics, and on any publications, in cooperation with the CARE Experts Working Group.

The Commission, following 3 years of this decision’s implementation, had to prepare a report for the Council on the results obtained and on the resulting indicators for continuing the activities.

The conclusions of the report were generally positive. Some improvements were suggested such as:

• harmonising the accident data;
• providing new information in order to round off the comparative international analyses;
• improving cooperation between EU countries, as this plays an essential part in data management and quality, and in the development of a policy on CARE user access and application.