Fatal accidents on the French motorways in 2015 - In-depth study of the FLAM database

Cerema carried out a study on how the fatal road accidents in 2015 had occurred and tried to determine their contributing factors. To this end, all the fatal accidents for that year in France (metropolitan France and overseas territories outside the Pacific zone) were collected and studied. This analysis is based on an fatal accident database resulting from the collecting, reading and coding of accident reports by Cerema specialists having a scientific knowledge of the influence of road infrastructure on driving behaviours and road accidents. These accident report forms are legal procedures for traffic accidents filled in by law enforcement forces. The database is called FLAM (FLAM stands for factors related to fatal accidents). This legal procedure includes the description of the accidents, the witnesses’ testimonies, the photos of accidents as well as all the elements necessary for the judicial investigations.