Driver factors responsible for 82% road accidents: Study

Tirupati: A study undertaken by the Neurosurgery department of SVIMS raised concerns over the behavioural attitude of drivers which is causing 82 per cent of road accidents. The fact that about 25 per cent of them even do not possess a driving licence underlines the need for keeping a strict enforcement of the rules.

As nearly 13 lakh people die every year in road accidents across the world and two to five crore people suffer non-fatal injuries and many of them are coming out with a disability, the study was carried out with the help of a questionnaire to analyse the root cause of head injuries among the 404 cases admitted in the hospital in a period of around one-and-a-half year.

Speaking to The Hans India, assistant professor of Neurosurgery Dr G Sreeram said that the cross-sectional study was carried out by him along with the head of the department Dr V V Ramesh Chandra and Senior Professor Dr B C M Prasad recently. All patients with head injuries that occur to the scalp, skull, brain and underlying tissue and blood vessels in the head due to road traffic accidents were included in the study.

He said that road traffic accidents are one of the five main causes of global burden of disability and most of the mortalities and morbidities due to traffic accidents occur in developing countries. As predicted by WHO road traffic crashes will be the fifth leading cause of death and third leading cause of disability across the world by 2030.

They found that among the victims of road accidents male preponderance could be seen as they account for 80.19 per cent. Also, about 40.84 accidents occurred during nights from 6 pm to 12 am and a majority of 62.62 percent of geared two-wheelers were involved in the accidents. Moderate severity of head injury was seen in 48.8 per cent of patients and among the fatalities youth in the age group of 15-35 were more.

The doctors also analysed that 77.72 per cent of patients did not use any form of restraint during driving ignoring the rules to wear seat belts, etc., Drivers were the victims in many cases as 82 per cent of accidents are caused by driver factors such as over speeding, drunken driving among others.

Further, Tirupati–Airport road, AIR Bypass road, Tirupati–Madanapalle and Tirupati–Piler roads account for most of the accidents along with Kadapa and Anantapur highways. It even identified the accident prone spots using Google Map.