Traffic Safety Basic Facts 2012 - Accident Causation

National accident databases mostly focus on crash circumstances so in-depth investigations are required to provide a more detailed analysis of causation. This Fact Sheet presents basic information about the causes of accidents based on two separate databases gathered in the SafetyNet project. It differs from other Basic Fact Sheets as the data is not currently expected to be updated, unlike the CARE database, so it provides a snapshot of accident causation factors. Nevertheless it illustrates some of the value that can be gained from the collection and analysis of in-depth accident data. The EC SafetyNet project produced two crash database processes which examined different aspects of the European accident problem. These were a Fatal Accident database at intermediate level and an in-depth Accident Causation Database. In both cases the detail of the data recorded far exceeded that normally available from national databases.