HUK-Verband, Cologne
IN GREAT BRITAIN only about half as many people are killed annually in road accidents as in Germany.
Since the total vehicle-mileage run in the two countries is of the same order of magnitude.
we gaze in wonder at England and praise her traffic discipline. In the U.S.A. there are, it is true, three times as many traffic deaths as in the Federal Republic; but there are seven times as many motor vehicles. We gladly explain the contrast by saying that speed limits are in force everywhere in the U.S.A., that police supervision of traffic is far more intensive. and that there has been systematic education in the schools.
Care should be taken in making such comparisons.
A truly scientific verdict on the relative risk of accident in different countries can only be made by comparing accident rates on roads of similar type in two or more countries.
Here too there is no shortage of studies. For instance it is stated by Pucher ( 1963) that the accident rate on German motorways is 1.85 per million vehicle-kilometres, while that on equivalent roads in the U.S.A. is only 0.92. Another study, HUK-Verband (1962) showed that the risk of accident is three times as great on a certain stretch of motorway in Germany as it is on a certain stretch of motorway in Britain.
However useful it may seem to be to make comparisons of road safety in different countries in the ways sketched above, it is today still a risky business. There are really three reasons for this :
- Lack of clarity about the data to be used (type and severity of accidents; traffic volumes);
(2) the fact that accident rates may vary with traffic volumes has not hitherto been taken into account;
(3) no account is generally taken of the fact that accident occurrences are not homogeneous. so that the accident rate is not a sufficient description.
I. LACK OF CLARITY
ABOUT THE DATA (cl) T~~pcl cltltl tlurnher of'accidtw ts