Road Traffic Accident

Primary reference(s)

United Nations, European Union and the International Transport Forum at the OECD, 2019. Glossary for transport statistics. 5th Edition. Accessed 30 November 2019.

Additional scientific description

Statistically agreed definitions for road transport accident (United Nations, European Union and the International Transport Forum at the OECD (2019) are as follows:

• Injury accident: Any accident involving at least one road vehicle in motion on a public road or private road to which the public has right of access, resulting in at least one injured or killed person. (A suicide or an attempted suicide is not an accident, but an incident caused by a deliberate act to injure oneself fatally. However, if a suicide or an attempted suicide causes injury to another road user, then the incident is regarded as an injury accident.)

Injury accidents include collisions between road vehicles; between road vehicles and pedestrians; between road vehicles and animals or fixed obstacles and with one road vehicle alone. Included are collisions between road and rail vehicles. Multivehicle collisions are counted as only one accident provided that any successive collisions happen within a very short period. Injury accidents exclude accidents incurring only material damage.

Injury accidents exclude terrorist acts. 

• Fatal accident: Any injury accident resulting in a person killed.
• Non-fatal accident: Any injury accident other than a fatal accident.
• Casualty: Any person killed or injured as a result of an injury accident.
• Person killed: Any person killed immediately or dying within 30 days as a result of an injury accident, excluding suicides. (A killed person is excluded if the competent authority declares the cause of death to be suicide, i.e., a deliberate act to injure oneself resulting in death. For countries that do not apply the threshold of 30 days, conversion coefficients are estimated so that comparisons on the basis of the 30 day-definition can be made.)
• Person injured: Any person who as result of an accident was not killed immediately or not dying within 30 days, but sustained an injury, normally needing medical treatment, excluding attempted suicides. (Persons with lesser wounds, such as minor cuts and bruises are not normally recorded as injured. An injured person is excluded if the competent authority declares the cause of the injury to be attempted suicide by that person, i.e., a deliberate act to injure oneself resulting in injury, but not in death.)
• Person seriously injured: Any person injured who was hospitalised for a period of more than 24 hours.
• Person slightly injured: Any person injured excluding persons killed or seriously injured. (Persons with lesser wounds, such as minor cuts and bruises are not normally recorded as injured.)
• Maximum abbreviated injury scale (MAIS): The Maximum Abbreviated Injury Scale is a medical classification on the severity of injuries. MAIS 1-2 is regarded as slight injuries and 3-6 as serious injuries. (Other classifications can be used if they can be transcoded to MAIS.)
• Driver involved in an injury accident: Any person involved in an injury accident who was driving a road vehicle at the time of the accident.
• Passenger involved in an injury accident: Any person involved in an injury accident, other than a driver, who was in or on a road vehicle, or in the process of getting in or out of a road vehicle.
• Pedestrian Involved in an injury accident: Any person involved in an injury accident other than a passenger or driver as defined above. (Included are occupants or persons pushing or pulling a child’s carriage, an invalid chair, or any other small vehicle without an engine. Also included are persons pushing a cycle, moped, roller-skating, skateboarding, skiing or using similar devices.)
• Accident between road vehicle and pedestrian: Any injury accident involving one or more road vehicles and one or more pedestrians. (Included are accidents irrespective of whether a pedestrian was involved in the first or a later phase of the accident and whether a pedestrian was injured or killed on or off the road.)
• Single-vehicle road accident: Any injury accident in which only one road vehicle is involved. (Included are accidents of vehicles trying to avoid collision and veering off the road, or accidents caused by collision with obstruction or animals on the road. Excluded are collisions with pedestrians and parked vehicles.)
• Multi-vehicle road accident: Any injury accident involving two or more road vehicles. The following types of injury accidents involving two or more road vehicles are:
  • Rear-end collision: collision with another vehicle using the same lane of a carriageway and moving in the same direction, slowing or temporarily halted. (Excluded are collisions with parked vehicles.)
  • Head-on collision: collision with another vehicle using the same lane of a carriageway and moving in the opposite direction, slowing or temporarily halted. (Excluded are collisions with parked vehicles.)
  • Collision due to crossing or turning: collision with another vehicle moving in a lateral direction due to crossing, leaving or entering a road. (Excluded are collisions with vehicles halted and waiting to turn which should be classified under (a) or (b).)
  • (Other collisions, including collisions with parked vehicles: collision occurring when driving side by side, overtaking or when changing lanes; or collision with a vehicle which has parked or stopped at the edge of a carriageway, on shoulders, marked parking spaces, footpaths or parking sites, etc. (Included in B.VI-15 (d) are all collisions not covered by (a), (b) and (c). The constituent element for classification of accidents between vehicles is the first collision on the carriageway, or the first mechanical impact on the vehicle.)
• Accident with drivers reported to be under the influence of alcohol, drugs or medication: Any injury accident where at least one driver is reported to be under the influence of alcohol, drugs or medication impairing driving ability, according to national regulations.
• Suicide: An act to deliberately injure oneself resulting in death, as recorded and classified by the competent national authority. (Designation of individual suicide must be determined by a coroner, public police officer or other public authority. (Attempted suicide as an act of deliberately injuring oneself (not leading to the death) is excluded. Only the death of the individual(s) who committed suicide is to be reported as suicide. Therefore, a fatality caused to a person by another person who committed suicide or who attempted to commit suicide is not to be reported as a suicide.)
• Attempted suicide: Act to deliberately injure oneself resulting in serious injury, but not in death, as recorded and classified by the competent national authority.

Metrics and numeric limits

Not globally reported.

Examples of drivers, outcomes and risk management

In 2018, the more than one quarter of those killed and injured are pedestrians and cyclists. Road traffic injuries are now the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5 to 29 years. Given the enormous human suffering and major economic losses for families and societies, road traffic deaths remain an unacceptable price to pay for mobility.

The WHO’s Global Status Report on Road Safety 2018, presents information on road safety from 175 countries (WHO, 2018b). This report is the fourth in a series and provides an overview of the road safety situation globally. The global status reports are the official tool for monitoring the Decade of Action. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that approximately 1.35 million people lose their lives on the world’s roads every year, and up to 50 million are injured (Association for Safe International Road Travel, no date).

The WHO has identified that road traffic crashes cost most countries 3% of their gross domestic product; more than half of all road traffic deaths are among vulnerable road users: pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists; and 93% of the world’s deaths on the roads occur in low- and middle-income countries, even though these countries have approximately 60% of the world’s vehicles (WHO, 2018a).

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has set an ambitious target of halving the global number of deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2020 (United Nations, no date).

The WHO is the lead agency for Coordinating the Decade of Action for Road Safety by working in collaboration with the United Nations regional commissions for road safety within the UN system (WHO Regional Office for Africa, 2020). WHO chairs the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration (United Nations Road Safety Collaboration, 2019) and serves as the secretariat for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011– 2020. Proclaimed through a UN General Assembly resolution in 2010, the Decade of Action was launched in May 2011 in over 110 countries, with the aim of saving millions of lives by implementing the Global Plan for the Decade of Acton (WHO, 2018b). WHO also plays a key role in guiding global efforts by continuing to advocate for road safety at the highest political levels; compiling and disseminating good practices in prevention, data collection and trauma care; sharing information with the public on risks and how to reduce these risks; and drawing attention to the need for increased funding.

Road traffic injuries can be prevented. Governments need to take action to address road safety in a holistic manner. This requires involvement from multiple sectors such as transport, police, health, education, and actions that address the safety of roads, vehicles, and road users (WHO, 2018a). Effective interventions include designing safer infrastructure and incorporating road safety features into land-use and transport planning, improving the safety features of vehicles, improving post-crash care for victims of road crashes, setting and enforcing laws relating to key risks, and raising public awareness (WHO, 2018a).

The 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety was held in Sweden in February 2020. Hosted at the request of the UN General Assembly by the Government of Sweden in collaboration with WHO, the theme was Achieving Global Goals 2030, highlighting the connections between road safety and achievement of other Sustainable Development Goal targets. The Ministerial Conference culminated in the forward-looking Stockholm Declaration, which calls for a new global target to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries by 50% by 2030. In addition, it invites strengthened efforts on activities in all five pillars of the Global Plan for the Decade of Action: better road safety management; safer roads, vehicles and people; and enhanced post-crash care. It also calls for speeding up the shift to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable modes of transport like walking, cycling and public transport. WHO is asked to continue to produce the series of global status reports, as a means of monitoring progress towards achievement of the 12 Global Road Safety Performance Targets (WHO, 2020).