INTRODUCTION A road accident (or

accident on the public highway:

AVP, or in France traffic accident) is
an unintentional collision, which
takes place on the road network
between a rolling machine (in
particular car, truck, motorcycle,
bicycle) and any other vehicle or
person or animal, moving or not,
which causes at least material
damage, even trauma or the death
of one or more persons involved.
Many factors contribute to the risk
of collision such as the state of the
roadway, the volume of traffic, an
unsuitable traffic speed, the road
environment, the weather, the
driver's experience but also his
behavior and his state.<< at
physics
According to the WHO, road accidents
around the world kill around 1.3 million
people each year and cause 25 to 50 million
injuries. It is also the leading cause of death
among young people aged 15 to 291 and the
leading cause of post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD)2.

Accidents are the cause of significant social and

insurance costs, while most road accidents can
be classified in the category of avoidable
accidents and avoidable deaths3, which we seek
to reduce through prevention, in particular by
means of safety rules, training, technical
improvement of vehicles and infrastructure
networks, and a change in behavior
I. DEFINITION In order to
facilitate international
comparisons, countries have
sought to adopt harmonized
 or comparable methods for
quantifying accidents. This
includes counting the wounded and killed.

In France, the Interministerial Committee for

Road Safety (CISR) of July 7, 2004 adopted the
principle of harmonizing the definitions of
severity used in the national file of bodily
accidents with those adopted by its main
European neighbours.

The law of 9 August 2004 on public health policy,

and in particular its article 28, thus referred to a
future order on the conditions for compiling
statistics. This order was issued on March 27,
20074. It specifies the following definitions.

1. Body accident
Road accident simulation involving victims, a
motorcycle and a car.

Minor road accident.

A road traffic injury accident (fatal and non-fatal)
is an accident which:

causes at least one victim, i.e. a user who has

required medical treatment;
occurs on a road open to public traffic;
involves at least one vehicle.
2. USERS A bodily accident involves a certain
number of users. Among these, we can
distinguish:

the uninjured: involved but not deceased and

whose condition does not require any medical
care;
the victims: implicated not unscathed.
Among the victims are:

the driver of the VTM (land motor vehicle)

himself, not protected by the badinter Law of
1985, on road accidents, that is to say that his
own faults can be blamed on him by the
insurance for refuse compensation for his bodily
injury;
passenger victims of VTM, who are all victims
protected by the Badinter Law. In the event of
death, the compensation is passed on to the
beneficiaries (family);
victim pedestrians and victim cyclists are not
considered VTMs and as such will be
systematically protected by the Badinter Law in
the event of an accident with a VTM which will
be considered automatically at fault.
Among the injured are:

hospitalized wounded: victims admitted as

patients in a hospital for more than 24 hours;
slightly injured: victims who received medical
treatment but who were not admitted as
patients to the hospital for more than 24 hours;
the driver and any passengers (more or less
vulnerable depending on whether they are
adults or children, protected or not by a seat belt
or an inflatable safety cushion (“airbag”).
The concepts of "slightly injured" (injured whose
condition requires between zero and six days of
hospitalization or medical care) and "seriously
injured" (injured whose condition requires more
than six days of hospitalization), in force until the
end of 2004 have disappeared. We speak of
"injured hospitalized" (victim admitted as a
patient in a hospital for more than 24 hours) and
of "injured not hospitalized" (victim having
received medical treatment but not having been
admitted as a patient to the hospital more than
24 hours). For the uninjured, they are considered
to be involved in the accident and not victims.
3. The killed
Before 2005, the definition of "killed" in France
was the victim who died instantly or within six
days of the accident. In 2008, it is the victim who
died instantly or within thirty days of the
accident [ref. necessary]. The follow-up of deaths
at 30 days is not yet properly organized across all
French hospitals [ref. necessary].

4. Correction factor

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For technical reasons, it is temporarily not

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When the number of fatalities is not measured at
30 days, a correction factor can be applied to
standardize the data by taking into account the
people killed after the accident as a result of the
injuries that occurred during the accident. In
2008/2009, it is estimated that 76% of people
killed at 30 days are on the first day of the
accident, which makes it possible to estimate the
number of people killed at 30 days, by
multiplying the number of people killed on the
first day of the accident by a corrective factor of
1.305.

5. The severity of an accident

It may be the subject of an objective statement
for material damage and injuries or life or death
situation (noting the consequences, including
administrative and medico-legal), but for the
driver, for the other victims, for the witnesses or
relatives the judgment made on the seriousness
and importance of the delayed or related
consequences of the accident is also largely
subjective, and cannot be reduced to the
material and biological consequences6,7; it
extends to all psychological effects in all persons
having a direct or potential link to the accident8.

II. Causes
One and most often multiple causes are
identified when a collision occurs on public
roads.

 General causes

There are external and general causes: poor road

conditions, too many vehicles, or weather events
(heavy rain, fog, etc.). These causes are all the
more accident-prone when they are exceptional
or when the driver is not prepared or
accustomed to them. But the analysis is far from
obvious since, conversely, we see in some cases
a resurgence of accidents in good weather due
to the increase in road traffic and the attitude of
road users9.
Causes and risks related to the driver and his
behavior
Several risk factors are identified by statistics.

Injury accidents, particularly serious accidents,

more often concern men10,11. For example, in
France in 2001, despite major prevention efforts
and improved vehicle safety, 7,720 people were
killed in road accidents. 75% of the dead were
male and 65% of the 153,945 injured were men,
i.e. a male/female incidence ratio of 3.1 for
mortality and 1.7 for morbidity10; “Lethality and
the frequency of serious injuries among survivors
are higher among men for the main categories of
users (motorists, motorized two-wheelers,
cyclists, pedestrians), after adjusting for the
circumstances of the accident and age. the
victims. Men are more severely injured for all
body regions and more often have serious
sequelae”10.

 The gender of the driver

According to studies carried out in France,

privileged social categories are under-
represented in road accident statistics, while
working-class categories are over-represented
(22.1% of road deaths in 2007 when they
accounted for 13.8% of the population). If young
people are over-represented among traffic
fatalities, this could be explained in part because
the working-class social group is the youngest.
Thus, the precariousness of the working classes
could, for example, explain the increase in road
deaths from 2014 in France, when it had been
steadily decreasing since 197212.
Driver's age
The age of the driver has an influence on the
degree of risk perception13,14 and on the type
of accident and the level of severity for the
driver.

Young people, and especially young men, are

more likely to take risks, including seeking
thrills or new sensations, drinking15 or taking
drugs16 and having a risk-taking attitude
towards
III. speeding in
particular17, which has
consequences in terms
of accidents18.

With the lengthening of the average lifespan,

and easier access to the car in most rich
countries, seniors are "more and more present
on the roads with an increasing driving habit,
especially among women drivers", and if they
drive fewer kilometers than an average driver,
while having "compensation strategies, for
example by avoiding driving in difficult conditions
or driving slower than others" their accidents are
more serious in terms of risk of injury and death
per person, because they are more fragile and
vulnerable. Statistics show that they are "over-
involved in intersection crashes with detection
and estimation problems in the driving task".
However, “the increased risk of accident per
kilometer, observed a few years ago among
seniors, tends to decrease, or even disappear if
we control for the effect of the annual mileage
traveled”19.

a. The driver's state of health

The driver's state of health, or addiction to
alcohol20 or narcotics or taking certain
medications (sedatives and anxiolytics in
particular) also has a major impact on the risk
factors and the severity of accidents. For
example, after awareness efforts and tougher
regulations in Quebec, "from 1991 to 1999, the
proportion of drivers with a blood alcohol level
above 80 mg dropped by 50%", however in the
early 2000s, “Driving under the influence of
alcohol is still associated with approximately 30%
of deaths, 18% of serious injuries and 5% of
minor injuries”20. Recent widowhood is also a
factor aggravating the risk of accident21.

In pregnant women, the second trimester of

pregnancy can also be a factor in increased
accidents22.
Number of driver illnesses (between 2014 and
2018 in Finland)

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possible to display the graph that should have
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For technical reasons, it is temporarily not
possible to display the graph that should have
been presented here.

Source ETSC23.
A Finnish study considers that the three main
health problems linked to fatal accidents are:

mental disorder,
substance dependence,
cardiovascular disease 23.
b. The degree of overestimating the
capabilities of the driver on his
own
Human beings can be unconsciously subject to
many cognitive and perceptual biases (which, in
terms of road accident risks, could be
encouraged by the abundant advertising on
vehicles and by certain films where drivers seem
invulnerable), with marked nuances according to
sex, age and experience24.

Psychologists have shown that in the 20th

century in the West, when an individual
compares himself to others, he almost always
considers (and generally wrongly) to be more
competent than others25,26,27 and he also
thinks he is making more efforts28 to avoid or
cause undesirable situations or events.

This socio-psychological bias called optimism

bias29,30 seems to be rooted in most countries
in North America and Europe. This is a very
widespread individual belief that "the majority of
motorists consider themselves less exposed to
the risk of an accident than others"31,32. This
belief can be measured by asking people to rate
their own risk of experiencing a negative event
compared to that of others. This belief is more or
less intense depending on motoNumber of driver
illnesses (between 2014 and 2018 in Finland)

For technical reasons, it is temporarily not

possible to display the graph that should have
been presented here.

For technical reasons, it is temporarily not

possible to display the graph that should have
been presented here.

Source ETSC23.
A Finnish study considers that the three main
health problems linked to fatal accidents are:

mental disorder,
substance dependence,
cardiovascular disease 23.
 c. The degree of overestimating the
capabilities of the driver on his
own
Human beings can be unconsciously subject to
many cognitive and perceptual biases (which, in
terms of road accident risks, could be
encouraged by the abundant advertising on
vehicles and by certain films where drivers seem
invulnerable), with marked nuances according to
sex, age and experience24.

Psychologists have shown that in the 20th

century in the West, when an individual
compares himself to others, he almost always
considers (and generally wrongly) to be more
competent than others25,26,27 and he also
thinks he is making more efforts28 to avoid or
cause undesirable situations or events.
This socio-psychological bias called optimism
bias29,30 seems to be rooted in most countries
in North America and Europe. This is a very
widespread individual belief that "the majority of
motorists consider themselves less exposed to
the risk of an accident than others"31,32. This
belief can be measured by asking people to rate
their own risk of experiencing a negative event
compared to that of others. This belief is more or
less intense depending on motorists and their
personal and driving history. Some think they are
almost invulnerable because they are protected
by a solid vehicle and equipped with high-
performance means of braking (ABS) and
protection and/or because they have great self-
confidence. Most people consider themselves to
be more competent or safer than others when
driving, and consider themselves to be a good
enough driver to drive safely (“perceived ability”)
and to be able to avoid an accident (“subjective
control”) ), although some admit to committing
offences. Others have more or less the
impression of having learned lessons of caution
when they have already been involved as drivers
or as passengers in one or more accidents
("direct experience of the accident") or know
relatives or people around them who have been
injured (“indirect experience of the accident”), or
even “consider that the situation to be judged is
a frequent cause of accident (perceived
frequency of occurrence of the accident)” . Such
a biased and unrealistic evaluation (in the sense
of an overestimation of one's own driving skills)
seems strongly involved in the risk of accidents
among motorists25,33,34,35. One might think
that every driver learns from their accidents, but
the scientific literature has produced divergent
results from individual experience on
“comparative optimism”34,36. For example,
some authors conclude that there is a weak link
or even no link between the history of accidents
and comparative optimism37,38,39; others
conclude that there is a negative link40,41 or
find a positive link42.
Motorists who have been involved in one or
more accidents as drivers or as passengers,
compared to those who have not had one, could
show more comparative optimism if, since their
experience, they have modified their behavior in
the direction of greater respect for the rules of
the road or the adoption of safety precautions”6.

When an accident happened a long time ago, its

caution-enhancing effects may diminish43.

d. Driving under the influence

Main article: Driving under the influence.
Drug use
Narcotics in France
In France, a driver is under the influence of
narcotics in 22% of fatal accidents which kill 752
people each year44.
“In 2019, according to the BAAC file, at least 494
people were killed in an accident with narcotics.
They represent 23% of people killed in fatal
accidents for which the test result is known.
Extrapolated to all accidents, it is estimated that
731 people were killed in 2019 in an accident
involving a driver under the influence of
narcotics, compared to 749 in 2018. — Road
safety in France - 2019 report - ONISR

The fatal accident rate with narcotics use is an

average rate. This rate is higher among moped
riders (36%) and on weekends or at night
(30%)45.

In Europe, THC-positive drivers are one to three

times more likely to have a crash than a sober
driver, to the extent that road crash is one of the
main risks faced by cannabis users46 .

Narcotics around the world

Globally, approximately 39,600 people were
killed by drug use on the road in 2013, half of
them by amphetamines, and a fifth by
cannabis47.

Under the effect of recent cannabis use, drivers

have a double risk of road accidents, and an even
greater risk of fatal accidents46.

Narcotics and alcohol

The joint use of cannabis and alcohol increases
the risk very significantly46, multiplying by
almost 30 the risk of having a fatal accident48.

 Effects of alcohol
 Main article: Effects of alcoholic beverages
on road accidents.
 Effect of speedL'âge du conducteur
