Abstract:
Introduction: Road traffic accident is becoming a major public health and development
challenge of the world. Every year nearly 1.3 million people lose their lives on the road and as
many as 50 million others are injured.
Method: The cross-sectional survey design was adopted for the study. The sample for the study
consisted of on 92 drivers of Minibus, Bajaj, Motorcycle, Public and Truck drivers for the
assessment of the extent and trends of road traffic accident, for factors identification at random
selection. In addition, households were selected to systematic random method in which a total
sample of 46 respondents was selected for the study in Debark Town. More over road traffic
officials were incorporated for the research. The instrument for data collection was both
questionnaire and interview. The data collected were analyzed using inferential statistics
Result: The highest road traffic causality was due to Minibus 31.7% and next to minibus was
Bajaj 21.3 % with the least record by Motor Cycle and Track with the extent of 14 % during the
last 13 years (2008-2020) taken for the study period. The most injury type was slight injury 48
(29.27%) and the second severity extent was examined as heavy or serious injury 46 (28.05%)
and death 40 (24.39%) was the third road traffic accident problem in the study area. Age, sex,
road curvature, driving time, alcohol and chewing “Chat” habits were found to be the factors that
contribute significant road traffic accidents in the study area.
Conclusion: The most affecting factor was age drivers 19.687 times than matured driver and
habit of driving after drinking alcohol and the result has shown having alcohol drinking before
driving had 16.517 times more chance of having a risky driving behavior compared to drivers
with no alcohol drinking before driving. Regarding the socioeconomic aspects, male were more
victims of road traffic accident than female in that the male residents in Debark Town are risked
for the road traffic accidents more by 32.6%. In addition, illiterate groups were more victims of
road traffic accident than educated in that the illiterate residents in Debark Town are risked for
the road traffic accidents more by 58%. Regarding to age groups old was more risked than
young aged people in the study area.
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