Vietnam: Government agencies aim to regularise traffic accident data
Source: Asia Insurance Review | Nov 2018
Differences in statistics on motor accidents released by various agencies have hindered road safety efforts.
The Law on Statistics puts the Ministry of Public Security in charge of recording figures on traffic accidents across the country. For years, this has been handled by the ministry’s police department. The National Committee for Traffic Safety and other relevant offices use the figures to propose traffic safety policies to the government, reports online traffic safety newspaper atgt.vn.
But alternate figures are provided by the healthcare sector. The numbers of hospitalised cases and deaths in hospitals from traffic accidents are reported to the Ministry of Health.
According to the newspaper, the police reports always under-represent the actual number of traffic accidents. For example, the police said 8,700 people were killed in traffic accidents in 2015, while the Ministry of Health put the number at 16,800.
National Committee of Traffic Safety vice chairman Khuat Viet Hung said the differing statistics made it impossible to gain an accurate view of traffic accidents throughout the country.
“If we had accurate numbers of deaths and injuries, we could institute much more appropriate policies,” Mr Hung said. “We could prevent accidents if we knew the exact numbers of incidents caused by speeding, infrastructure problems and drunk driving.”
He said the police numbers come from reports written at the scene of accidents, while the health ministry bases its numbers on records of hospital visits. The police reports do not account for cases in which people were injured but the police were never involved.
Mr Hung suggested setting up a national database to unify reporting standards and arrive at numbers both agencies can agree on. It will be necessary to unify figures provided by the police, the health ministry and medical insurance agencies. A