Accident statistics and data accuracy

atlas_shrugged
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Re: Accident statistics and data accuracy

Post by atlas_shrugged »

I would file a Subject Access Request under the Data Protection Act (DPA) - this should include a £10 fee. This to request data held about you (give date and location of accident), ask where your data appears on the site like crashmap since this is based on official STATS19 data.

Make sure they know that this is to check the data is held on you is accurate. They *should* give this request high priority since they are either in error recording the location (or they have changed the location), or your accident has not been recorded at all.

I know from accidents that have happened in Cranebridge that witnesses, and the local papers report different locations of the accident which are in completely different areas of town. The fault is that the emergency services are not reporting accurate GPS coordinates of where the crash happened, as a result confusion reigns.

Please report back on this thread why there was a 5 mile error on your crash and thanks for the heads up.
Bez
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Re: Accident statistics and data accuracy

Post by Bez »

Is there precedent on whether S19 data qualifies as "personal data" under the relevant legislation? Clearly each row of casualty data is derived from a person but that person is not identified by the data and broadly speaking nor are they identifiable by it (certainly not directly; but for cases reported in the media it is obviously often possible to infer an identity). The DPA 2018 defines such data as "information relating to an identified or identifiable living individual" but the point I'm a little unsure on is what extent of obfuscation/anonymisation would make a person not "identifiable" by this definition. After all, even if you removed all the casualty data, you could in theory argue that the vehicle data in combination with media reports was "information relating to an identifiable living individual", but I suspect that this argument wouldn't hold water.
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mjr
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Re: Accident statistics and data accuracy

Post by mjr »

Bez wrote:Is there precedent on whether S19 data qualifies as "personal data" under the relevant legislation? Clearly each row of casualty data is derived from a person but that person is not identified by the data and broadly speaking nor are they identifiable by it (certainly not directly; but for cases reported in the media it is obviously often possible to infer an identity).

Would the Subject Access Request be for the S19 data alone, or the collision incident report (which surely would contain personal data in order to be able to prosecute if needed) and the attached S19 data?
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thirdcrank
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Re: Accident statistics and data accuracy

Post by thirdcrank »

Going from your account of the crash, it must have been the subject of a compensation claim and the solicitor will have bought a copy of the police report to discover what evidence the police gathered. If you can at least get the police reference from them, that might be the easiest way in, to find what was recorded. It may even be they will be able to let you see what they got from the police. If the Stats data are wrong, they may not be a good starting point to get back to your police report
Vorpal
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Re: Accident statistics and data accuracy

Post by Vorpal »

They do not release to members of the public any data for which the RTC details can identify the victims (e.g. due to media publicity, etc.)

So you have to access the database as a researcher or government employee, and have signed privacy non-disclosure and stuff like that.

I am aware of this because of some specific RTCs, where I knew the victims, were not in any of the publicly available data. Yet, when I downloaded data as a university researcher, they were included.

edited to add: the proviso above that you are checking accuracy of your own personal data should address the privacy issues.
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thirdcrank
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Re: Accident statistics and data accuracy

Post by thirdcrank »

I'm unclear whether this is motivated by a general wish to ensure the mapping of crash locations is accurate or something about the recording of this crash. You know that it's not been mapped at the correct location so you can't start at that end with any confidence. That's why I'm suggesting starting at the other end with the police reference. I know you have located a possible mistaken location but my feeling is that unless it's certainly your crash at the wrong location, it's not a good starting point. If you are certain it's the right crash at the wrong location and mapping accuracy is all you seek, I'd write to whoever is responsible for the wrong map and invite them to put it right.
evink
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Re: Accident statistics and data accuracy

Post by evink »

A major issue with STATS 19 is that it is only a record of personal injury accidents that become known to the police.

The DfT has commented 'A very low proportion of non-collision accidents become known to police.' A 2012 DfT paper estimated that only 4% of Non-collision incidents are recorded in STATS 19.

Hospital Episode Stats (HES) records all emergency hospital admissions. In 2017 the highest number of admissions by mode of transport by mode of transport to English hospitals was 16,680 for cyclists. Of these 10737 were due to non-collision incidents. These non-collision incidents were not broken down further by cause.

For this reason NHS Bristol undertook a survey of over 1000 cyclists in 2009.Applying this data, where applicable, to the 2017 HES data shows that the highest cause of hospital admissions was collisions with cars, pick-ups or vans. The second highest was ice causing a non-collision incident.

A ROSPA paper issued earlier this year provides the evidence to support the above information : https://www.rospa.com/rospaweb/docs/adv ... ition2.pdf . I was the joint author of this paper with Rob Bennington of Bristol City Council.

The ROSPA paper calls on the government, local authorities and cycling organisations to use HES data alongside STATS 19 data when making decisions about road safety priorities. It would also be helpful if NHS England separated out the causes of Non Collision Incidents in their published statistics
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