Abstract
Road crashes have become a serious issue, and their negative impact, both socially and economically, has been subject to policies and programmes worldwide as well as a research topic for numerous studies in various fields. The present study aims to identify and demonstrate the persistence of certain features related to the occurrence and location of road crashes in Cluj County, Romania, which is a territory recording a constant high road crash incidence in the last decade. We used descriptive statistics to illustrate the key features of road crashes occurring in urban and rural areas, by road type, within the administrative territory of Cluj County, Romania. The analysis was focused on four main aspects: causes, effects in terms of persons injured and deaths, occurrence by road type, and location within and outside urban areas. The years 2019, 2009, and 2018 were considered as reference moments for the values recorded for all indicators in the analysis. Results showed a general trend of decrease in road crash incidence in 2019 compared to 2009, which was also confirmed by the absolute and relative increase in the period 2018-2019. The most significant decrease was found in the number of deaths, especially in the case of road cras h e soccurring on national roads and urban streets, where the incidence is still quite high. However, when ranked considering the number of crashes caused, we noted the persistence of certain categories of triggering factors for the high incidence of road crashes related to both drivers and pedestrians. Road safety is very much related to the behaviour of all participants in traffic and not so much to the road infrastructure and quality, although road capacity may be a triggering factor for drivers’ behaviour. Further measures are needed to enhance road safety and meet the European target of halving the road crash number and fatalities until 2020 and in the next decade.
Highlights
Sustainability at any territorial level is partly expressed by road safety, which is one of the main issues addressed by international organizations worldwide
There are several aspects that can be observed when analysing the spatial distribution of road crashes, namely causal patterns, mode of production, resulting effects, location which, once established, may indicate the existence of dangerous road sections and critical points
This study aims to illustrate what are the main causes triggering road crashes in Cluj County at present, compared to 2009, what were the dynamics in the road crash incidence in the last ten years and how are road crashes distributed spatially in urban and rural areas and in relation with the road type
Summary
Sustainability at any territorial level is partly expressed by road safety, which is one of the main issues addressed by international organizations worldwide. Road injury prevention was first addressed by World Health Organisation in collaboration with the World Bank in 2004, in a first global report concluding that road traffic injuries were ranked 11th among death causes worldwide and 13th at the European level (WHO, 2004). The two subsequent global road safety reports reiterate the high attention needed for road crash risk prevention and for policies and measures to be instated by states to decrease the numbe r of road fatalities, since road traffic injuries were found to still be a major health issue triggering high impact socially and economically (WHO, 2009, 2018). The last WHO report emphasized the risk of not meeting two of the targets proposed by Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development under Sustainable Development Goals 3and 11, namely to improve road safety in urban areas and halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2020 (United Nations, 2015)
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