Abstract
Countries compare their road safety as they do their economies, namely to see if they are better than others. The OECD has recently started an "International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD)" as a permanent measuring instrument. It contains, per country, annual figures, since the mid-seventies, for numbers of road accidents and victims according to various defined variables and classes. The same is done for the road network length, numbers of motor-vehicles, and numbers of kilometres travelled. It also contains basic data as area and population. This data collection can be used to make countries comparable, which are very different in size and population.