Hvor mange kommer til skade i trafikken? estimering af antal personskader efter trafikulykker i Danmark baseret på selvrapportering igennem en befolkningsundersøgelse

It is well-known that Denmark's official traffic accident statistics with around 550 personal injuries/million capita/year is associated with a large degree of underreporting. In a population survey organized as a cohort study over a year among 5,532 representatively selected Danes aged 18 and above, we have estimated a more accurate accident rate. The study shows, that the best estimate is that for every million inhabitants aged 18 or above in Denmark 14,637 are injured in traffic each year to an extent, that they go to an emergency room, to their general practitioner or call the “Out-of-hours medical service”. However, 25% of the 14,637 accidents are pedestrian falls at traffic areas, which according to the official Danish accident definition is not a traffic accident. Almost half of the injured road users are absent from work or school and a third receive rehabilitation following the accident. Vulnerable road users account for 72% of those injured, and 68% of the accidents occur in urban areas. This is in clear contrast to the official accident statistics, where cyclists and pedestrians make up for only 36% of the injured, and accidents in urban areas only 53% of all personal injury accidents. A consequence of the large number of unreported accidents may be that the accident prevention work is downgraded and that the work carried out often allocates great emphasis on car accidents in rural areas - because these accidents are known - and little emphasis on accidents with vulnerable road users in the cities - because these are not known.