Walters L., Broughton J., Lawton B., Hoeglinger S., Yannis G., Evgenikos P., Bos N., “How safe are children in cars on European roads?”, Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Protection of children in cars, Munich, December 2007.

Within the framework of SafetyNet, an EC co-funded research project, the objective of this research is the analysis of road safety parameters related to children inEurope by the use of the EU CARE database with disaggregate data on road accidents as well as of other international data files (OECD/IRTAD, Eurostat, etc.). Data for ten years and 14 EU countries on road accidents involving children are correlated with basic safety parameters like the mode of transport, the casualty person class road network type, as well as the day of the week, the time of the day and the season. This comparative analysis revealed a decrease of more than 45% in children fatalities in traffic accidents from 1995 to 2004, considerably better than the respective decrease of 26% in the total number of fatalities.  It was also shown that children are, on average, at less than a quarter of the risk of dying at a road accident than the average person. Additionally, children in passenger cars account for more than two-fifths of child fatalities, whilst child pedestrian fatalities account for just over a quarter. Specific countries with higher children accident fatalities for particular accident types were also identified. The results of the analysis allow for an overall picture of the safety level of children in Europe, providing thus useful support to all decision makers working for the improvement of safety in the European road network.