TRAUMA REGISTRY CONTRIBUTION TO A BETTER KNOWLEDGE OF THE MOTORCYCLE INJURY POPULATION

A road traffic crash trauma register has been in place within the Rhone (France) Department area since 1995. Crash injuries were recorded and coded according to the Abbreviated Injury Scale, 1990 revision. 1996 injury data was selected from the register for analysis. The overall extent of physical injury sustained by each casualty is assessed by the Injury Severity Score. Rhone area trauma register records and police reports were coupled and intensively reviewed. A comparison of the trauma register with these official statistics reveals a substantial underreporting of the latter. The aim of this paper is to show the main characteristics of the underreporting of motorcycle accidents and how this underreporting correlates with injury severity and age--the less severe the crash and the younger the age of the injured, the smaller the chance that it was recorded.