In the study presented in this poster, it is stated that the child pedestrian injury rate in Salford, UK is almost twice the national average - itself already high by European standards. In the UK, road safety schemes are developed by local councils and based only on police derived data. There is concern that the police data may not represent the true distribution and severity of road crashes. The CRASH (Co-ordinated Research into Accidents on Salford's Highways) was established to link police data with hospital Emergency Department (ED) records so that any deficiencies in the present reporting system could be identified and the value of any additional information assessed. The addition of ED data allows a more accurate determination of injury severity and also identifies a higher number of serious injuries. Hospital records indicate that 27% of children involved in a road crash in Salford are not reported to the police. Furthermore, the true proportion of serious child accidents should be 19% rather than the reported 8%.
Abstract