Evolution of traffic accidents in the urban and suburban areas in Mexico during 1997-2016: Higher risk exposure and lower lethality

Abstract

Objective: To analyze the time evolution of the occurrence, lethality and mortality of traffic accidents in both urban and suburban areas throughout the Mexican Republic. Method: This is a secondary analysis on the reported traffic accidents in the urban and suburban areas in Mexico during the term 1997-2016. Population growth, occurrences, lethality, and mortality rates were estimated on a yearly basis in order to analyze the evolution of time series and the relationships between per-year variations in the abovesaid indexes. Results: Despite the traffic events keep growing in number, Mexico shows some significant advances in the control and decrease of deaths because of it. The number of events reported in 2016 grew 4% as compared to 1997. Deadly events decreased 21,9% and deaths decreased 24,5%, which accounts for an occurence growth of 15,4% and a lethality and mortality decrease of 48% and 40%, respectively. Conclusions: The probability to be involved in a traffic accident has grown gradually over the time; however, the lethality and death risk due to this cause has decreased significantly in the recent years.