Characterizing Traffic Offenses in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Case Study in Arada Sub-city

Abstract

Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, is undergoing a period of substantial growth. However, the road transport system faces major challenges. The level of road traffic crashes is increasing from time to time as the number of vehicle population and urbanization increases. Systematic analysis of available data from a different perspective and implementation road safety policy to reduce traffic crashes are interesting work in the coming years. Factors that are responsible for road traffic accident are categorized into driver error, pedestrian, road environment and the vehicle factor. Driver error and noncompliance of drivers with road traffic rules and regulations is the main factor for road traffic crashes which accounts for approximately 90%. This study aimed to know the characteristics, most common traffic offenses, their magnitudes and trends on the roads of Addis Ababa city, particularly in Arada sub city from November 2014/15 to November 2016/17 GC. The Traffic offence data in Arada Sub city, vehicle population details and driver population details in the Addis Ababa city were collected. Proportions, frequencies and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. Results indicate that the amount of traffic offenses over a three - year period increased by 13.7% and decreased by 2.4% for male and female drivers respectively. In addition, male traffic offenders (95.6%) outnumber women traffic offenders (4.4%) by a wide margin in traffic violations as compared to licensed male (85.6%) and female (14.4%) drivers in the city. Traffic flow obstruction (12.9%), disrespecting prohibited signs (11.3%), illegal parking (8.5%), overloading (8.2%) and driving while talking on the phone (7.8%) were most commonly occurring traffic offenses. Stricter measures and educations on road safety awareness need to be reinforced.