Road traffic accident: retrospective study

Road traffic accidents are a major yet neglected public health problem in developing countries. It is due to multifactorial causes viz. human, vehicular and environmental factors play role before, during and after a Road Traffic Accidents (RTA). Modifiable & preventable factor can help in reducing burden up to some extent. Study was planned to study the major causes/risk factors as well as nature, type and mode of occurrence of road traffic accidents in Ujjain city. Descriptive study was planned using information from different sources like District Hospital, Private hospitals, Traffic Police record then filtering for duplicate cases was done and all the victims of road traffic accidents in last one month were the study subjects. Total accidents noticed during study period was 87 with 9 deaths. Most vulnerable age group for accident was 25–34 year with males predominance. Most common cause of road traffic accident was driving above speed limit (47.1%) followed by consumption of alcohol by driver (32.1%), rash driving at turns (20.7%). It has been observed that Deaths and injury were mainly due to rash driving (68%) or due to consumption of liquor (32%) while driving vehicle. On the basis of results obtained major causes of road traffic accidents were pedestrians and animals sharing roadways with fast and slow moving vehicles, Increased driving speed of vehicles, widespread spread of disregard of traffic rules, unusual behaviour of men and animals and among all the above causes increase speed driving of vehicle cause maximum mortality.