Abhatoo - Centre Nationale de Documentation

This report on Underreporting of Road Traffic Casualties is a follow-up of the 1994 IRTAD Special Report on “Underreporting of road traffic accidents reported by the police at the international level”.

The report highlights the need to assess the real magnitude of the road safety issues, which requires having a better understanding of the real volumes of road traffic casualties.

Based on a questionnaire sent to all IRTAD members, this report reviews the known causes of underreporting and the experience of the 22 responding countries to assess the magnitude of underreporting and suggests a method to estimate the rate of underreporting. Finally it provides a set of recommendations to improve the data reporting mechanism.

This paper is intended to create a larger awareness of underreporting, and to generate a greater understanding of the opportunities available to gain more insight into the actual volumes involved