Road Traffic Accidents

Road Traffic Accidents

Introduction

Road traffic accidents are considered as one of the major cause of mortality and morbidity globally. A study was conducted on the extent of road traffic accidents in USA, which revealed that the number of deaths and disabilities from the road traffic accidents are increasing day by day in United States of America. This study ranked road traffic accidents as the ninth major causes of disabilities in the year of 2002. This study described that road traffic accidents will come the leading cause of disabilities by the year 2020. Furthermore, the study revealed that there were about 85% of all deaths that were caused by road traffic accidents in the year 1998. It is also a fact that about 96% of the children were died because of road traffic accidents (USA today, 1998).

Discussion

Road Traffic Accidents - a major Problem

Road traffic accidents are a major, common, and growing community health issue that impacts on all sectors of society. They remain as a major cause of death and disability in developing countries. This data was accounted by the developed countries, which further states that 90% of the entire disabilities are the results of road traffic accidents. There are a number of causes that are associated with higher risk of road accidents. A survey was conducted by World Health Organization, which revealed that the ratio of deaths from road traffic accidents is getting crucial as described by the statistics (Nantulya & Reich, 2002). The statistics that was registered in the survey of World Health organization showed that there were about 9, 99000 accidents were reported in the year 1990. The ratio of accidents was increased to 1.2 million accidents in the year 2002. There were 80% deaths in the overall cases of accidents, whereas 86% of disabilities were associated with these accidents. The major factor that is considered as the main problem for road traffic accidents is increased number of motor vehicles. It is also a fact that developing countries are more prominent to road traffic accidents because of heavy vehicles. Africa is considered as the leading country in the case of road traffic accidents. The costs of accidents build up a huge amount of burden over the economy of the country. It was estimated that the cost of road traffic accidents were about 3% of the annual nation's GDP. According to the various studies, road traffic accidents are the 11th leading factor for death by the year 2012. Furthermore, it is also associated with the serious and critical injuries (USA today, 1998). The extent of road traffic accidents was increased by the year 2013 at the rate of 50 accidents per day in the country(Nantulya & Reich, 2002). Most of the deaths of younger adults and children were reported as the result of serious car and motor bike accidents. It was also evaluated that everybody on the road is at the risk of accidents, but the pedestrians, motorcyclists, and cyclists are more prominent to serious injuries from the road ...