Harnam Singh

Fatal Road Traffic Accidents: Causes and Factors Responsible

Road traffic accidents are one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the world. The etiological factors may be classified into human and environmental out of which human factor account for 90% of the accidents. The present study was conducted to know the causes and factors responsible for the accidents. Human error is responsible for accidents in 77% of cases in which drivers were at fault in 56.2% of cases followed by pedestrians and passengers of vehicles responsible for 17.8 and 3.0% cases respectively. Defects in vehicles, poor weather accounted for accidents in 8.4% cases respectively and bad roads were responsible for accidents in 4% cases only. None of the driver or passenger of the vehicles was wearing helmets or seatbelts, a very disturbing trend. The important human factors responsible for accidents were, over speeding, rash driving, not following traffic rules, carelessness while crossing roads, playing on road, alcohol intake, fatigue and sleepiness.