Citation

Laher H. Proc. Road Saf. Four Continents Conf. 2007; 14: 14p.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Conference Sponsor)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

South Africa's road traffic death rate of 11.7 per 100 000 per 100 million kilometers travelled is the fifth highest in the world. The paper accordingly attempted to identify 'at-risk' groups for transport related fatalities (2001-2004) across four South African cities, namely Johannesburg; Cape Town; Durban and Pretoria, cities where the National Injury Mortality Surveillance System (NIMSS) has full coverage. Using NIMSS data these at risk groups were analyzed for sex, race, age, elevated blood alcohol levels, day of the week and time of day. Age standardized rates were also calculated for traffic-fatalities across the cities. Consistent with studies conducted elsewhere (Harruf, Averry and Alter-Pandy, 1998) our results indicated that pedestrians were the group most 'at-risk' (45.94 per cent), followed by unspecified, drivers, passengers, motorcyclists/bicyclists and train commuters. In most instances fatalities peaked over weekends across all road user types. Males particularly Black African males were at greater risk than females. With the exception of motorcyclists where 20-29 year olds were at the greatest risk, the 30-39 age group was most at risk across all road user types. Elevated blood alcohol levels were also noted for males between the ages of 30-39 across all road user types. Our results concur with international traffic fatality trends in that they point to the particular vulnerability of pedestrians and indicate the need for integrated road safety programming. Safety measures need to give particular consideration to the traffic fatality-alcohol abuse nexus.