Sirshak Dutta1, Debasis Sarkar2, Nazrul Mallick3
BACKGROUND
A road traffic accident (RTA) is any injury due to crashes originating from,
terminating with or involving a vehicle partially or fully on a public road.
Increased mechanisation and improved socio-economic condition of the people
in developing countries like India leads to increased use of motor vehicles,
disproportionate to the increase in the number of roads. We wanted to assess
the socio-demographic profile of road traffic accident victims and study the
antecedent factors influencing the road traffic accidents.
METHODS
This is an institution based descriptive, cross-sectional study, conducted among
114 patients.
RESULTS
Maximum numbers of the victims, 33.32 % (N = 38) were in the age group of
21-30 years followed by 26.31 % (N =30) in the age group of up to 20 years,
mean age of the victims was 29.53 ± 13.85. Majority of the victims, 70.05 % (N
= 80) were on motorcycles, and 26.32 % (N =30) of the victims were alcoholic
at the time of accident. Majority of the victims, 92.86 % (78 out of 84), among
the motor-cycle riders, four-wheeler drivers, and front seat passengers had not
used any safety measures at the time of accident.
CONCLUSIONS
Road traffic accidents emerged as the major epidemic of non-communicable
disease, holding a major share of mortality and morbidity data all over the world,
majorly among the young productive portion of the population. It was evident
from the study that the majority of victims were young adults, from lower socioeconomic
background, and rural residents. So, lack of proper information and
consciousness regarding road safety rules and measures are definitely the
important aetiology behind this epidemic. Almost two third of the cases were
among the bikers in the present study, which is pointing out the need of
focusing on the road safety rules related to bikers by the road traffic authority.
