Injury Constellations in Light Motor Vehicular Accidental Deaths: An Autopsy Experience

Accidents represent a major epidemic of non-communicable diseases in the present century. They are part of the price we pay for technological progress.¹ Of all the systems that people have to deal with on a daily basis, road transport is the most complex and the most dangerous.² The problem is so severe that, by 2020, it is projected that road traffic disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost will move from being the 9^th leading cause of DALYs lost to the 3^rd leading cause in the world and will be 2^nd leading cause in developing countries.3

In this study it was seen that young males were the most common victims of light motor vehicular road traffic accidents. Most of them died of head injury sustained during a head on collision, more commonly with a heavy motor vehicle, during night hours. Owing to the lack of first aid facilities along the roads, deaths were frequent during first hour of the accident. Majority of the victims did not wear seat belts and sustained injuries over extremities. More than a quarter of the male victims had consumed alcohol.