Road Traffic Accidents So Easy To Occur, So Difficult To Prevent: A Review

Rapid and unplanned urbanization has led to an enormous increase in the number of motor vehicles world-wide. World Health Organization estimated that across the world road traffic accidents kill 1.3 million people and injure another 50 million people every yearly. In India more than a lakh of people lost their lives due to road traffic accidents in the year 2009. The most common causes for road traffic accidents are over speeding, non usage of safety measures, driving under the influence of alcohol, distracted driving especially mobile phone distraction, poor road design, Poor visibility, over confidence, ignorance, tendency to overtake from wrong side and lack of adequate infrastructure. Improvement in quality and availability of injury related indicators providing useful data on the effects of crashes is needed for efficient planning. A number of factors affecting the occurrence of road traffic accidents need to be considered within the system approach. Principal preventable factors need to be acted on include better road design and traffic management, improving maintenance of vehicles, enforcement of speed limits, use of seat belts and helmets and strictly dealing with offenders of traffic laws including severe punishment for driving under influence of alcohol or drugs.