Factors Influencing for Severity of Road Traffic Accidents in Sri Lanka

Road Traffic Accidents (RTAs) are one of the most prominent public health problems as it is a leading cause of death by injury and all deaths globally. This study therefore intended determine the factors associated with severity of RTAs in Sri Lanka (2005 - 2019) based on data driven decision making (DDDM) which would be useful for decision makers. Analysis of frequency tables with Chi-square statistics and binary logistic regression analysis were applied to derive the required inferences. When the variables were considered separately, all attributes of road characteristics, time & environmental characteristics vehicle characteristics and human & accident characteristics have significant association with severity of accident except gender of the driver. The fitted binary logistic model revealed that wet road surface, night with improper street lighting, night with good street lighting, rural area, normal weekend, holiday, alcohol test not tested, accidents due to the lack of attention of the driver, two wheels vehicles, age of vehicle less than 10 years and driver’s age under the age of 18 years have significantly contributed to occurrences of fatal accidents. The odds of happening fatal accidents in wet road surface 1.109 times higher than that it occurs in dry road surface. The odds of happening fatal accidents during night with improper street lighting is 1.518 times higher than that it occurs during daylight. The inferences derived from this study would be very useful for policy makers in order to minimize RTAs in Sri Lanka.