Human and environmental factors contributing to fatal road accidents in a Romanian population

Abstract

Road accidents are often caused by an accumulation of elements which belong largely to four major classes of conditions: the human factor, infrastructure, vehicles and weather conditions. In Romania the number of fatal road accidents per capita is among the highest in Europe. In order to limit the number of directly fatal road accidents, it is essential to know the contributing factors that lead to their increase. The purpose of this study is to synthetically analyze the conditions related to human and environmental factors that contribute to directly fatal road accidents on a representative sample of cases. Our study has identified as major risk factors for fatal road accidents: male gender, age between 30 and 39 years old, low educational level, darkness, inattention, excessive speed while driving. Therefore the main risk factors for fatal road accidents are similar to those in other countries. The large number of cases (positioning us on the first three places in the EU, together with Lithuania and Croatia) may be decreased by implementing protective measures similar to those in other EU countries, which have been shown to significantly decrease the number of fatal road accidents.