"Turk182" wrote in message
The report is very interesting and certainly throws up questions of statistical reliability that need addressing. However, what has not been mentioned is that both of the sources of statistics that are being compared have a hidden agenda. Whilst the 43 police forces in the country together with the Home Office and Department of Transport want to show the KSI figures reducing to justify what they are doing; the hospitals and NHS want to show that serious injuries haven't dropped to justify their existence and to keep A&E departments open.
Which set of figures is correct I don't know. Although the Department of Transport figures in their 2005 report do admit that there is under reporting of accidents from the police, but why that should have changed over time as is being suggested in the BMJ report I don't know. The under reporting is supposed to be because some accidents aren't reported to the police and even where the police know there was an accident they don't necessarily know what happened to the victim once they have left the scene of the accident.
Scooter twitsSteve Walker I had about 40 hours, 2 hours a week, 20 weeks, after school, occasional week off. Went through 3 instructors though, only one tried to commit dissolution, which is...
The BMJ report makes no attempt to question the accuracy of the NHS figures.
One thing is certain even from the NHS figures which show no drop in the serious injures rate; this has been achieved at a time when there has been a significant increase in road use.
Ian
