This study intends to present the analysis of all road accidents that occurred in France during the year 2011 in which children (0- 13y incl.) have been involved. Based on the data collected and coded in the French safety project (VOIESUR) accidents with children have been analysed by experts. Then, these data have been weighted to be representative of the French situation.
The paper proposes an analysis of the accident data for 5 categories of road users that are light vehicle occupants, pedestrians, cyclists, motorbike passengers and buses and coaches’ occupants. A distribution of the different parameters of the accident and its outcomes such as the children’s injury severity is available per different road user categories.
The repartition of children across the previously described user categories shows that the most common accident for children is being light vehicle occupants (64%), then cyclists (17%) and finally pedestrians (15%). Buses and PTW occupants are representing a very small proportion (approximately 2% each).
On the 101 fatally injured children, the repartition is different and as follow: 61% are light vehicle occupants, 11% are cyclists and 26% are pedestrians. No power two wheels (PTW) passengers or coach and bus occupants have been fatally injured in 2011 in France. The remaining 2% are not belonging to any of these categories of road users. For each category, a comparison of accident data between fatal cases and the others is proposed ending in a list of some remarkable differences. Countermeasures for fatal accidents are also proposed in each respective category. For light vehicle occupants, the analysis of usual data such as infrastructure and journeys have been completed by a sociological profile of children’s drivers and specific psychological items such as alcohol and drug consumption, atmosphere in the vehicle. Concerning children involved in cars, the sample size for children in cars is 654 that once weighted to make it representative of reality correspond to 17748 children including 62 that were killed. Evidence of a restraint system used by children has been coded for 69% of children, but in only 44% of the cases, the restraint system was appropriate and correctly used.
For children in the other road user categories, the analysis is a little bit more limited but it includes the age distribution, infrastructure and journeys data, the responsibility of involved parts (including children). The presence of protection device such as helmets: it is about 8% for cyclists and about 82% for PTW passengers. For pedestrian children they sustained their accident while they were using a crosswalk in only 5% of the cases, and in 50% of the cases they were running across the road.
Conclusion: This paper opens the field of considering all children involved in a road traffic accident in a national safety study, not focusing only on fatal cases and not limited to the situation of children in cars. Even if some limitations due to the use of weighting factors exist, it gives a comprehensive picture of the situation in France.