Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their policy on the recording of road traffic accidents as serious rather than fatal when death occurs at a later stage.

The Department for Transport’s STATS19 data collection system for road casualty statistics follows a common internationally agreed definition on fatalities. For statistical purposes, the definition of a fatal road casualty is restricted to casualties who sustain injuries leading to death less than 30 days after the accident. This is the common international definition, adopted by the Vienna Convention in 1968 to allow for satisfactory international comparisons of road accident statistics.