A single European-wide crash injury database, or a compilation of individual, comparable databases, would be of exceptional benefit to the legislation process at an EU level. A direct, data driven approach would allow identification of any safety problems at an early stage, and facilitate a quick and accurate evaluation of any new or remedial measures, including legislation, that may have been implemented. The aim of STAIRS is to make the first moves towards such a goal. It involves the standardisation of in-depth road accident data collection and methodologies that would provide the core data and basic framework for crash injury studies. It is intended that existing groups will be able to adopt the protocol within their existing studies but it is anticipated that the groups will normally add to it to reflect special research concerns. The protocol is intended to facilitate rather than restrict any investigations, so it does not prescribe a particular approach that must be adopted in every case. Rather it provides a set of requirements, for the final datasets in particular, in terms of the core variables and the case selection criteria that will lead to comparability of datasets. This will bring about a European-wide agreement on how to collect this type of information, and if followed, will lead to comparable databases being held in each country that adopts and follows the protocol developed. The initial objectives focus on ‘secondary safety’ or injury prevention. This means that it looks at methods to prevent injuries after a crash has occurred and not methods that try to prevent the crash from happening. However some tasks such as data quality, confidentiality and ethics, data collection methodologies and Work Package 2, Linkage with National Accident Databases, all have direct relevance to accident causation studies. The work is divided into four packages: Work Package 1 - In-depth Data Collection. This includes such areas as: A review of existing studies, the information to be collected, information collection methods, information accuracy, validity of the process, and confidentiality and ethics. The main topic within this area is agreement upon the specific information to be collected as core elements in in-depth studies. The three studies that are part of the STAIRS consortium, all have differing aims and objectives; determined either by their sponsors, their governments, or both. For them to come to an agreement as to the minimum information requirements for a crash injury study, is a great achievement. This has resulted in the detailing of approximately 300 variables (and if necessary, their associated values), and agreement upon a meaning and context of the variable that was acceptable to all. In some cases there was no system in place that would accurately give the information the partners required, and a new system had to be developed. Other parts of the package dealt with important associated tasks including the question of the techniques to be used to collect the data, and why certain techniques are better for collecting certain data in some circumstances than others. Next came ensuring the accuracy of the data, the accuracy of the data collection, how it is transposed into electronic format, and how that information is managed. Finally, the problems of confidentiality and ethics was explored. The purpose of conducting crash injury studies is to prevent further suffering. However, this information can be very sensitive, and sometimes is not accessible to the researchers for their work. EU data protection regulations, as they are implemented in many countries, can restrict access to and the collection of data considerably. This poses a grave problem for crash injury research. It is recommended that such work as this be given a special exemption to these restrictions. Work Package 2 - Linkage with National Accident Databases. This area concerns the linking of in-depth accident databases to Regional, National accident databases. The approach has only been applied to the 1st step of the linkage, between In-depth and Regional accident databases. For most in-depth studies, strict statistical requirements are not being met, but some linking to Regional or National databases may be possible. However, it is essential that the constraints of the data and the underlying assumptions are stated if Regional or National estimates are produced. Methodologically, the estimation approach should first be to determine if the sample of in-depth accidents are representative of the Regional population from which they are sampled. If the Regional level estimation was satisfactory then National estimates might be made. If the National level estimates also check out satisfactorily then the data may be suitable for pan-European purposes. Weighting is required because the in-depth database is probably a biased sub-set of the Regional database and the Regional database probably a biased sub-sample from the National database. The selection of appropriate weighting variables will then reduce the bias. It cannot however, eliminate the bias caused because some specific accident data were never included. If estimates are to be made on a Pan-European basis then certain conditions will have to be met. The first is the acceptability of the National estimates, which in turn require the acceptability of Regional estimates. Only once these pre-requisites have been made can a Pan-European estimate be considered. Any constraints which apply at a Regional or National level will also apply at a Pan-European level. Further, all the constraints from different Countries must be taken into account, hence if one Country only has data on new cars then a Pan-European estimate including that Country can only be based on new cars. This does not necessarily mean that different sampling schemes used in different Countries cannot be combined at a Pan-European level, but it does mean that some care should be exercised before combining such data. Work Package 3 - External consultation. The processes of external consultation that members of the consortia developed are the main topic of this Work Package. These range from: conference papers at prestigious events throughout the world; presentations to interested groups and organisations involved in, or associated with, in-depth crash investigation, a workshop attended by a selection of delegates from the areas of research, government and manufacturing; and the development of a World Wide Web site (www.ice.co.uk/stairs) in order to disseminate the groups work and findings to as large an audience as possible. Work Package 4 – Workshop. The idea of the workshop was to begin a two-way discussion between interested parties and the STAIRS partners. It was hoped that from these discussions the protocols developed could better reflect the wants and needs of a wider target audience as well as being a test of the validity of the work done so far. The feedback from the delegates was excellent and any changes required were on a detailed level. This also shows the care and dedication the group as a whole has given to the work, in that it was acceptable to manufacturers, governments and other research establishments with little or no changes required. (A) For the complete report see: http://europa.eu.int/comm/transport/extra/final_reports/stairs.PDF
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