The national registration rate of road fatalities should be increased from the present 84% to 100%.
The national registration is carried out in BRON (Register of Road Crashes in the Netherlands): the data file which contains the characteristics of road crashes and casualties as supplied by the police. This data is used as the basis for road safety policy in the Netherlands. However, there are road fatalities that are not registered as such and about which no information can therefore be found in BRON. The registration rate gradually declined in recent years, but in 2010 it showed a sudden fall from 90% to 84%. For seriously injured road casualties, the situation is even worse. The worsening of the registration undermines the basis for road safety policy and research.
The present registration of serious road crashes is below standard and must and can be improved.
This is one of the recommendations made in the SWOV report entitled The registration of road fatalities in the Netherlands (a Dutch report with English summary).
SWOV has investigated which factors contribute to the sudden, strong decline of the registration rate in BRON in 2010. The conclusion was that the decline coincides with two recent developments within the police force.
Firstly, the so-called registration set has ceased to exist as from 1 January 2010. This was a form which had to be completed by the police in case of a serious crash and which contained detailed information. For certain fatal crashes the police can now suffice with making a report of their findings. For non-fatal crashes and if no legal action needs to be taken a report of the characteristics is sufficient. However, these reports often do not contain sufficient information to enter the crash in the BRON data file.
Secondly, in 2009 the police switched to using one registration system for all their activities, the Basic Enforcement Facility (BVH). In 2010, Dutch Parliament commissioned the Netherlands Court of Audit to investigate the decision making on the introduction of BHV. The Netherlands Court of Audit conclusions indicate that the introduction of BVH may have a negative effect on the quality of the road crash registration.
SWOV suggests reintroducing the registration set for road fatalities and serious road injuries. SWOV furthermore proposes including more variables in the so-called characteristics report. This will make it easier to link this information with information from other sources. To make it possible for the police to carry out a more complete registration, the software that is used by the police will need to be more user-friendly. SWOV expects this will result in quality improvement of the data as well as in a more efficient procedure. Investments to achieve this are recommended.
Every year, Statistics Netherlands establishes how many people have died in road traffic crashes. Several sources are used: information supplied by medical practitioners who have performed the autopsy, files supplied by the district public prosecutor’s offices, and the BRON data file, which was discussed above and which contains the police data. The number of road fatalities is important to gain an idea of the status of road safety in the Netherlands.
On 18 April 2011, the Dutch minister of Infrastructure and the Environment announced the number of road fatalities in 2010. This number was 640, an 11% decline in comparison with 2009. Taking account of the considerably lower registration rate in 2010 SWOV questioned this number. In addition to the investigation of the registration rate SWOV therefore investigated how Statistics Netherlands determines the real annual number of road fatalities, and how the information is compiled which Statistics Netherlands uses as a basis. There are many steps between dying and showing in statistics.
SWOV has found that on the basis of the available data Statistics Netherlands correctly establishes the annual number of road fatalities in the Netherlands.
Concerning the completeness of the data that Statistics Netherlands uses as a basis, SWOV draws the conclusion that it is very probable that there are fatalities that are assumed to have died from natural causes, whereas they were in fact a fatality in a road crash. In our opinion, this underregistration can be attributed to the medical practitioner in attendance who has to determine whether or not someone has died from natural causes. Further study is necessary to establish how many road fatalities are not registered due to this, or to establish whether this concerns a specific share of road fatalities.
As yet, Statistics Netherlands does not make use of the National Medical Registration (LMR) in the Netherlands. The registration contains data on patients that have been released from hospitals in the Netherlands (decease is a form of release).
Because the LMR data of 2010 were not yet available when this study was performed, the added value of the LMR data for determining the real number of road fatalities in 2010 could not be established.
SWOV recommends investigating the added value of the LMR data together with Statistics Netherlands as soon as the LMR data of 2010 are made available.
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