Discover traffic accidents

Every year, traffic accidents occur. Every year, there are traffic casualties. In this section, you will discover the statistics of traffic accidents and traffic casualties.

What will you learn in this topic?

How many traffic accidents were there in your municipality? How are the victims of traffic accidents counted? What is a victim? What are the factors that influence the number of accidents? Is the traffic more dangerous in one municipality than in another?

How are the figures on victims of traffic accidents compiled?

A victim is a person who has been slightly or seriously injured or has died in a traffic accident. There can be multiple victims in a single accident.

Number of traffic accidents and number of victims

Those victims were traveling by some means of transportation.

We can categorize the victims by the different means of transportation involved in these accidents and create a bar chart or column chart.

The (absolute) frequency corresponds to the number of counted traffic casualties for each means of transportation. If you add up all these frequencies, you get the total number of casualties.

The mode is the means of transportation that accounts for the most casualties in a traffic accident.

Of all the traffic casualties in your municipality, what is the share of casualties for each means of transportation?

To calculate the proportion of car accident victims (drivers and passengers) in relation to the total number of traffic casualties, you need to divide the frequency of car accident victims by the total number of traffic casualties. If you multiply this proportion by 100, you get the percentage of car accident victims in relation to the total number of traffic casualties. You can perform this calculation for each means of transportation and then represent the obtained percentages in a pie chart.

Compare all the traffic victims recorded in your municipality with another municipality.

Is the number of car accident victims the same in both municipalities? Is the percentage of car accident victims the same in both municipalities?

Using the bar chart and the total number of traffic casualties, you could create two pie charts. These charts would each show the distribution of traffic casualties according to the means of transportation. In some cases, you will see that the pie charts differ significantly.

Choose another geographical area to compare:

Evolution of the number of accidents and victims of traffic accidents in your municipality

Two evolutions are visible on this chart:

  1. Evolution of the number of traffic accidents with casualties.
  2. Evolution of the number of traffic casualties.

You can see that the number of traffic casualties is generally greater than the number of traffic accidents with casualties. This is logical: an accident can involve multiple casualties.

You can see that the number of casualties and the number of accidents evolve over time. They can increase, decrease, or remain the same from year to year.
You can measure the evolution of a variable (for example, the number of traffic casualties) over time relative to an initial value by calculating the so-called evolution rate or rate of change.

Factors that influence the number of accidents?

Traffic accidents are often the result of a combination of factors or circumstances.
Prevention, road safety plans and road improvements are all ways of reducing the risks.

Which municipality is the safest?

Is the safest municipality in terms of road safety the one with the fewest victims? Not necessarily !

For every 10,000 inhabitants, municipality A would have 1,000 victims. Municipality B would have 45.

If we assume that the number of victims of traffic accidents is proportional to the number of inhabitants in a municipality, then municipality A would be less safe than municipality B in terms of road safety.

See if you have understood.

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