Risk Factors of Road Traffic Accidents and Its Severity in North Shewa Zone, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

Ethiopia is a country with the largest number of road traffic accidents and fatality rate. Pedestrians and the disabled, children and the aged in particular, are the major victims of these accidents. The severity of road traffic crashes is also likely to be much greater in Africa than anywhere else. The major objective of this study was to identify the major factors determining road traffic accidents and its severity in North Shewa Zone. The study is based on secondary data obtained from the police records of the accident cases in North Shewa Zone Police station from February 2013 - September 2016 G. C. The ordinal logistic regression analysis is applied to examine the association between severity levels of road traffic accidentsand human related variables, environmental and road related variables and vehicle related variables. Ordinal logistic regression analysis revealed that age of driver, driver-vehicle relationship, speed, alcohol use, chewing khat, educational level, driving experience and vehicle service year were found to be significant predictors for severity levels of road traffic accident.