CONSEQUENCES AND CAUSES OF MOTORCYCLE TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS- A CASE STUDY IN WOLAITA SODO TOWN, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Ethiopia has the highest rate of traffic fatalities per vehicle in the world as per the World Health Organization(WHO). The reason behind is due to various factors such as poor maintenance of roads, inadequate marking, poor street lighting, un licensed drivers, traffic violation, over speed and overtaking. The lack of public transport in many parts of Ethiopia is encouraging the private transportation thus increasing the fatalities. Lack of monitoring and enforcement measures are some of the major causes for the occurrence of various accidents in different parts of the country. Wolaita Sodo is one of the well connected town, from Addis Ababa to various parts of Ethiopia. The traffic in the town is uncontrollable with lot of motor cycles and Bajaj especially near market places. The present study is aimed to evaluate the consequences and causes of motor cycle accidents in the town. The accident data collected from the respective traffic police stations is sorted out to understand the trend of accidents. It is observed from the collected data that more number of accidents is occurring due to minor drivers and motor cycle drivers followed by various traffic violations. An attempt is made in the study to analyze the impact of various influencing factors for the occurrence of fatalities by using multiple regression model. The study may provide alternative measures to reduce various consequences involved in accidents and to search the possible measures to reduce the rate of accidents.