There are up to 8 million mishaps each year in Germany, resulting in about 580,000 injuries -- including as many as 38,000 victims who are severely hurt, Steffen Ruchholtz and his colleagues at Marburg University Hospital report in Deutsches Arzteblatt. But the number of deaths dropped 4.1 percent from 1999 to 2005.

The researchers based their analysis on the trauma registry of the German Society of Trauma Surgery -- a database of 11,013 patients from 105 hospitals.

Ruchholtz also found there were major regional differences in the care of severely injured patients among regions.

In the future, regional trauma networks will ensure that a severely injured patient can be transported from the site of the accident to a suitable hospital within 30 minutes, Ruchholtz said.