This study is concerned with the ability of the police and of hospitals to collect data on traffic accidents with personal injury. Out of 2055 victims registered by a hospital the police had 803 (39.1%) on record while the hospital had registered 99.4% of all registered victims. The proportion of victims registered by the police was comparatively low for single vehicle accidents, for accidents with slight injury only, for unprotected road- users and for patients who were not hospitalised immediately after the accident. Errors were found in 16% of the police data describing patients and in 3.5% of the hospital data describing accidents. The police data on the use of seat belts turned out to be erroneous.
Abstract