Measurement Madness: Recognizing and Avoiding the Pitfalls of Performance Measurement

Chapter 4All I Need is the Right Measure!

Although recent advances in automobile manufacturing have delivered ever-increasing safety for drivers and passengers, road traffic accidents continue to act as a threat to life and limb. By their very nature, road incidents are highly visible and attract attention both on the part of the public as well as national and international governments. Organizations such as the World Health Organization and the International Transport Forum routinely publish road accident reports, comparing injuries and fatalities across different countries. One would imagine that a road accident fatality indicator would be easy to design, and the compilation of comparative statistics would be fairly straightforward. However, nothing in the world of measurement is easy or straightforward!

So how do countries measure and record road accident fatalities? It turns out that the answer depends on where you measure it, how you measure it, whom you ask, where the data comes from and whether there are any incentives to show a particular level of performance. Does that sound familiar?

To begin with, different countries have different definitions of what constitutes a road traffic fatality. According to the most common definition, which is adopted by the International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD), a road traffic fatality is recorded if a person involved in an accident dies within 30 days of the incident. This is a relatively simple definition, which, according ...