Recorded causes for traffic accidents may not be accurate

The recorded reasons behind traffic accidents may not reflect the actual cause in many cases, because every accident is assigned one cause by police, when in fact several factors may have been in play.

The Central Bureau of Statistics last week published an analysis of data collected from traffic accidents involving injuries in 2006. The figures from the report, which was based on information provided by the Israel Police, show that 16,955 drivers violated traffic laws immediately before accidents: 2,417 ignored a traffic light, 2,202 deviated from a lane and 1,739 drove too close to the vehicle in front of them.

Still, do these figures from the police truly reflect the violations by the drivers?

"The program used by the police allows the entry of only one reason as the cause of an accident," said Superintendent Ronny Levinger, who heads the Transport Division of the Traffic Department. He was speaking at January's meeting of the Knesset's War Against Drugs Committee.

"There are many accidents whose files show that the official violation recorded as the cause of the accident is deviation from a lane, for example, or ignoring a stop sign, or speeding. This is how it's reported and this is how it's recorded in the statistics. If, however, drugs or alcohol caused the driver to deviate from his lane, to speed or to ignore a stop sign, this is not reported."

This means that if a driver is caught speeding while under the influence of alcohol, only the speeding violation will appear in the statistics. Why is only one violation recorded?

"It's an old, primitive system," laments Levinger, and Dr. Moshe Becker, a road safety and transportation expert, agrees.

"The Israel Police usually report one cause for an accident," says Becker, who advised the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee on Traffic Accidents, headed by MK Nachum Langental, in 2002.

"There is a serious problem here from the perspective of the reliability of the statistical reporting due to the recording of only one cause. This is deficient reporting that stems from the manner in which the entire police [computer] system is built. The police indicate the violation that seems most fitting for the purpose of filing charges, from the prosecution's perspective."

According to Commander Meir Or, the head of the National Traffic Division: "We are in the advanced stages of developing a data input system that will commence pilot trials by October. From the beginning of 2008 we will be working with the new system."