IMMIGRANTS AND TRAFFIC SAFETY (PRESTUDY): AN ANALYSIS OF EXISTING PUBLIC DATA SOURCE IN SWEDEN

Using existing public data sources, we have tried to describe some traffic safety measures for immigrant groups in Sweden. The study was made in three stages: A study of the literature, a survey of available data sources, and statistical analysis of some combined data sources. The results of the literature study were disappointing, an indication of the limited interest in these issues so far. In the database survey, we found that there are some important sources containing informationabout traffic and road users. Unfortunately, not all of these can be merged with the records of the total population (RTB). Since RTB is the only data source that contains data on the country of origin, it is not possible to elucidate all aspects of traffic safety for immigrant groups from existing data. One example is that travel patterns cannot be described since the travel pattern survey data cannot be matched to RTB. In the comparison of accident statistics, we did not study individual countries but larger groups of countries, a total of nine. The results indicate significant traffic safety differences between these groups of nationalities. Finally, we discuss some aspects of quality in the data sources used. It is concluded that the results must be interpreted with some care. (A) This publication is also available on the Internet; URL: http://www.vti.se/pdf/reports/M907.pdf