The project ASTERYX aims at Assessing The European Road SafetY Problem – by way of an eXploitation study of the CARE Database (Community Database on Accidents on Roads in Europe). A consortium of four European road safety research institutes carried out– for the first time – detailed Trans-European accident research using the CARE database of the European Commission (DG TREN). The project considers the following issues: * Analyse capabilities and limitations of CARE and its overall potential added value for the road safety research community; * Evaluate user guidance and handling of CARE-II, i.e. the version of the CARE database currently in operation (aspects of user interface, help functions and glossaries); * Highlight possible flaws by misinterpreting or misuse of data, especially when comparing data from different Member States and give recommendations for further development of CARE-II; * Give hands-on advice and examples in the use of CARE; and * Detect some Member States’ specific characteristics in accident patterns, using the list of variables made available in the EU project CARE PLUS, funded by the European Commission. The main purpose of this case study is to demonstrate the possibilities and limitations of the use of the CARE-database, while focusing on a 'real life' traffic safety issue, in this case: rear-end accidents. In view of the emphasis on aspects concerning the data, this work is not a scientific study of all relevant items pertaining to the problem of rear-end accidents. For instance, no references are given, and analyses are not exhaustive with regard to contents; also, no statistical tests were carried out. Therefore, findings with regard to contents are reported in chapter 4 (Discussion of results), while in the final chapter 5 (Possibilities and limitations of the data in CARE) conclusions with regard to this main item of the study are presented. Rear-end accidents are considered to be a source of considerable harm to society, because of the high chance that occupants of cars that are hit from behind may suffer from neck pain complaints. In some cases these complaints become a source of long-lasting health consequences. Dutch accident data, analysed by SWOV, point to a very extensive increase of the number of rear-end injury accidents during the nineties. However, from these Dutch data it did not become totally clear whether the development was a real one, or one due to bias or other changes in the police registration on which the accidents data is based. Therefore, it became desirable to compare the Dutch data with data from other countries. The problem of whiplash injury from rear-end accident is already taken seriously by the EU, especially with regard to improvement of car safety, focussing on seats and head restraints. But proper accident data to establish the scope of the problem of rear-end accidents is still missing, so the study to be undertaken based on CARE data may help to gain more insight. If we have established the scope of the problem and its development, we would like to know whether rear-end accident occur on all types of roads, or on certain types only. We would also like to know about traffic exposure on these types of road, since chances of having a rear-end accident may be linked to traffic density. (Author/publisher) For the other ASTERYX reports see http://ec.europa.eu/transport/roadsafety/publications/projectfiles/aste…
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