Comparison of self-reported and observed road safety performance indicators

Abstract

The first concept of road safety performance indicators was published by European Transport Safety Council, Brussels in 2001. Hungary has long and reliable time series of safety belt wearing and child safety seat usage rates in passenger cars. These rates are based on real roadside observations and representative sample, meeting the requirements of international road accident databases. The methodology of the data collection has been further developed during the recent years, but we paid attention to the possibility of comparison with the earlier data and consistent analysis of time series. Although the roadside observations could not have been organized in each year, the trends can be seen relatively well. Our initial hypothesis was that the self-reported data always show a bit "better" picture about the driving behaviour than the observed ones, since the people are not sure that their data will be handled in an anonym way. Based on these results we can say that the ESRA results are relatively good estimations of the real safety belt wearing rates.