Official reporting and newspaper coverage of road crashes: A case study

This paper describes a case study in Flanders–Belgium on the reporting rate of road crashes. Crash data from three sources were compared: official crash data, data retrieved from an insurance company and newspaper articles. A sample of 140 injury crashes with motorcyclists from an insurance company was used as the reference category. The purpose was to explore factors that contribute to the likelihood of crashes (not) to be reported in official statistics and newspapers. Logistic regression analyses and chi-square tests were used to reveal differences in reporting rate according to some variables. About 80% of the crashes with severe injuries were reported in the official statistics whereas the reporting rate for crashes with slightly injured was about 55%. Newspapers covered about 50% of crashes with severe injuries. The reporting rate in both official statistics and newspapers increased with the severity of the crash.