An Empirical Study on Contributory Factors of Fatal Road Accidents

Abstract

Road Transportation is the major transportation method in Sri Lanka. Many steps have been taken to develop road facilities in order to build up an economically and socially beneficial road transportation system in Sri Lanka by all the governments during last three decades. Though, road transportation helps to Sri Lankan Socio-economic growth in many ways, it is essential to discuss about the negative influence caused by road accidents. Today, according to Sri Lankan traffic police reports traffic accidents have become one of the major causes to death and injuries. This study reviews about Fatal Road Traffic Accidents (FRTA) occurred between 1989 and 2015. Fatal accident statistics from year 1989 to 2015 have been taken and analysed in order to get results for this study. Based on statistics published by Department of Census& Ststistics and Sri Lanka traffic police, number of deaths were tbulted with respect to the user of the road. According to the results of this study pedestrian deaths are higher than other types of fatal accidents before the year 2000. Deaths of drivers’ have become higher than that of passengers’ deaths and pedestrians after the year 2000. There is an upward trend of fatal accidents in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, the study reveals that the young men in the 16- 29years age group are the major victims for eaths through road accidents and majority of them are bike riders and three wheeler drivers. This is a serious issue that can influence the socio economic growth of the country. According to the data from 1989 to 2015 it could be clearly identified that the number of accidents are in vulnerable state even though the road quality has been increased. Therefore, government and the policy makers should consider this matter and necessary measures should be taken in order to prevent this situation.