Road injuries particularities in the Chisinau municipality

Abstract

Introduction. Injuries caused by road accidents are a major public health problem. Every year, around 1.3 million people die in road accidents, and up to 50 million people are traumatized with serious health consequences. In the Republic of Moldova, the mortality rate through injuries occupies the fourth place after the maincauses of death and road accidents - the II place trough main types of injury and poisoning. This is a strong argument to study the character and structure of road injuries of the population in the Chisinau municipality and develop recommendations to improve local safety policies. Material and methods. The study included data collection from the official statistical reports o f the Chisinau Police Department for 2015-2017, processing and description of the indicators obtained through secondary data collection. Results. Data analysis of road traffic police records highlighted several aspects. There is an increase in the total number of car crashes (+18.52%) from 2015 to 2017, as well as in the total number of injured traffic participants (+10.95%). The mortality rate, as analysed from the police records in the studied period is increasing by 17.54%. Most of the road accidents occurred in the Botanica district, with 326 accidents (35, 8%) and 365 people (29,4%) with different injuries. According to the months o f the year, the days of the week and time, data revealed: October, Friday, most accidents occurred between 12am and 20pm, and most deaths registered between 18pm and 6am. The most common cause of accidents was not granting priority to other vehicles, registering 289 road accidents (20, 1%) in 2017 less than in 2016 while registering 335 road accidents. As a second cause: being not granting priority to pedestrians, registering 266 (19, 25%) road accidents in 2017 and 244 road accidents in 2016. Conclusion. The dynamics of road accidents during the studied period revealed a slight tendency o f increase in the total number of deaths trough road accidents and injured persons as a result of road accidents. There is a strong need for developing further prevention actions for decreasing the number of road injury and to strengthen the multidisciplinary efforts o f all actors in different competent bodies and structures.