Pattern of injuries in fatal motorcyclist accidents and their correlation with drugs, alcohol and road safety measures

Motorcycle accidents are important cause of mortality and morbidiy in Malaysia. It is resulting into a great loss of youthful lives. More and more accidents are reported every year. The objective of this study was to measure the incidence of motorcyclist fatalities in relation to age, gender, ethnicity, causes of death and pattern of injuries. The study only concentrated on the cases reported at the University Malaya Medical Center (UMMCJ) from the year 2001 to 2005. The results showed that majority of victims belonged to age range of 17–30 year. Almost, 41.2% of the total deaths were caused due to cranio-cerebral injuries followed by multiple injuries with 38.5%. Most of the victims were male (95%) compared to the female (5%). From the ethnic group perspective, most victims were Malays (54.7%), followed by Indian (19.0%) and the Chinese (12.9%). In our study, we have also found that 74.59% occurred in the main road compared to 25.4% accident which happened on the highway. Among them 44.2% of the cases died on the spot, 17.6% died on their way to the hospital, 37.5% died in the hospital afrer admission and the rest, 0.6% died at other place e.g home. Head injury was the major site of fatal injury that was present internally (43%) as well externally (26%). In this study, 77 males and 2 female victims were found to be positive for drugs. Alcohol was positive in 149 male, and 6 female victims.