Statistical Analysis of Road Traffic Car Accident in Dire Dawa Administrative City, Eastern Ethiopia

Abstract

Road traffic accidents (RTAs) have turned out to be a huge global public health and development problem. Dire Dawa City one of the federal states in North East Ethiopia has a high rate of accidents and deaths in relation to number of vehicles on the road. Realizing the need to establish baseline information on RTAs, the present study was conducted in Dire Dawa city under the jurisdiction of Dire Dawa Police Station, Dire Dawa, Ethiopia. Complete Road traffic car accident data of the year 2009 - 2013 from police records of Dire Dawa city Police station were studied. Data can be analyzed by using SPSS version 20.0 and MINITAB version 13.1 software. Data interpretation was done using descriptive statistics, two t-test comparison, chi-square test of independence, analysis of variance (one-way and two-way), and design of factorial experiment. The finding of this paper showed that the main cause of car accident is drivers. About 80% of car accident is resulted from the driver fault. Among the accident that resulted from the driver fault, not given priority for pedestrian contain the first position. Other factor like poor road condition, poor car condition, the absence of knowledge in traffic system, lack of ambulance and poor medical treatment are other cause and condition that increase the severity of the incident. Generally, the occurrence of car accident problem depends on defect on human factor, vehicle characteristics, road characteristics and environmental condition. The age of driver had also a significant impact on the occurrence of traffic accidents. Accidents were also highly depending on environmental factor like weather condition, type of road surface, condition of the road and joint road shape.