The objective of this paper is to present a methodological approach and acase study for an international comparison of accident data coming from different national databases. Safety levels and the characteristics of severe crashes involving High Gross Vehicles (HGVs) in different European countries (Italy, France, Germany, Great Britain, Spain) and the USA are analyzed. Considering that all the countries involved have different inventorystructures for the variables reported in their national accident databases, the taxonomy theory was used in order to create a comparable structure for the database used in the analysis. The taxonomy is non-exclusive and the codes are categorical, denoting the absence or presence of a certain feature. Based on the data available in each national database the five EU databases of accidents involving HGVs have referenced to only one, composedof 11 items (casualty class, injury number and severity, location, light conditions, road conditions, junction, vehicle type, driver age, driver gender, accident type and ma-neuvers), which capture common features of HGV accidents. For the five countries, the relations between the various characteristics of accident involvement are com-pared with the chi-square testof independence, to determine whether there is a significant difference be-tween the countries in terms of frequencies of crash categories. Finally, within homogeneous specific groups or classes, European countries were compared with data collected by US research programs and crash systems.
Abstract