In 2021, an estimated number of 6,800 road users were seriously injured in the Netherlands. This number is similar to the number of serious road injuries in 2020. Like in 2020, the number of serious road injuries in 2021 is lower than the number expected on the basis of the trend up to and including 2019, when the number amounted to 6,900 [1] [2].
In the Netherlands, serious road injuries are defined as persons admitted to hospital for road injuries with a maximum severity of 3 or more on the medical injury scale AIS (MAIS3+), for the complete definition, see the question What is the official definition of a serious road injury?). Up to and including 2020, hospitalised road injuries with a moderate injury severity (MAIS2) were also included in the number of serious road injuries. The MAIS2 injury group amounted to 15,900 casualties in 2021, which is higher than the 2020 number. This continues the upward trend, observed up to and including 2019 [1] [2].
Other sources also mention road injuries with an injury severity that could be considered serious, but for which different definitions are used. According to these sources, in 2021, 66,000 road injuries with an injury severity of MAIS2 or higher paid a visit to an accident & emergency (A&E) department [3] and 13,795 road injuries were acute clinical A&E admissions [4].
