brand logo

Constructing new roads not ‘viable’ solution to reduce accidents: Economists  

28 Apr 2021

Improved road designs, facilities for vulnerable road users, and maintenance the way out   When the number of vehicles operated and the length of the roads increase, fatal and severe accidents continue to increase, and therefore, investment in the construction of new roads in order to serve the existing traffic demand is not a viable solution to arrest the existing trend in road accidents, a local transport economics-based research study recently found. These findings, observations, and recommendations were made in a research article titled “An analysis of the Enduring Factors of Road Traffic Accidents in Sri Lanka”, authored by C.T. Danthanarayana and S.N. Mallikahewa (both attached to the Department of Economics of the University of Colombo) and published recently in the Sri Lanka Journal of Economic Research. Road traffic accidents lead to the loss of thousands of lives and considerable damage to property. According to World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates, 1.25 million people die every year due to road traffic accidents while 20 to 50 million persons suffer nonfatal injuries, and many sustain disabilities as a result of such injury. The statistics reveal that in many countries, the cost of road accidents accounts for up to 3% of their gross domestic product (GDP). More than 90% of road accidents occur in low and middle-income countries with lower socioeconomic status. Road injuries are now the 10th leading cause of death globally and are, according to the WHO, predicted to become the seventh leading cause by 2030, unless remedial actions are taken to halt this disastrous trend. Road accidents are now a major concern, as they directly affect economic growth and development. Human error is the leading cause of road accidents and it is important therefore to act responsibly in maintaining a reliable and safe transport system. The construction of safe roads and pavements, the enforcing of safe speed limits and road rules, and the use of safe vehicles are all, as noted by the WHO, key elements in the quest to eliminate fatal crashes and to reduce serious injuries. In Sri Lanka as elsewhere, road accidents are a serious issue, directly influencing public health and well being by causing many disabilities as well as a great loss of life every year. This problem has drastically increased over the last few decades, with high numbers of and increases in fatalities, grievous injuries, and damage to property. Road fatalities have trebled during the last four decades and the age group between 21 and 30 years has become the most vulnerable category for fatalities in road accidents. Traffic Police records in 2017 revealed that in Sri Lanka, on average, six persons die in road accidents every day while thousands of road accidents occur each week. As per the statistics, one in every 45 deaths is caused by a road accident while the past trend in accidents reveals that the risk will be doubled for the next generation. According to the road accident database maintained by the Traffic Police Headquarters, road accidents are categorised into four groups, i.e. fatal, grievous, non-grievous, and damage only. Of these accidents, around 7% of total accidents are fatal while 23% are grievous. As per the Traffic Police records of 2017, non-grievous and damage-only accidents have been around 35% each during the last five decades. There were 37,596 road accidents in Sri Lanka in 2017, according to the Police statistics. Of these 2,962 were fatal while 8,666, 13,102, and 12,866 were reported as grievous, non-grievous, and damage-only accidents, respectively. The number of grievous accidents including both fatal accidents and accidents resulting in grievous injuries has trebled from 1977 to 2017, even though the number of non-grievous accidents does not show a significant increase during those four decades. Damage-only accidents decreased remarkably during this period, from 33,481 in 1977 to 12,866 in 2017. As per the “Analysis of Road Accidents in Sri Lanka: Analysis for 2002” by A.S. Kumarage, S.M. Wickramasinghe, and M.D.R.P. Jayaratne (2003), damage-only accident statistics are unreliable because the reporting rate is low and is subject to extraneous factors such as, amongst others, insurance requirements and the availability of police personnel for reporting. In the road user categories, drivers and riders are recorded as the highest number of those who are exposed to fatal accidents, accounting for 51.6% of the total fatalities, according to the National Transport Statistics of 2017. Road accidents have thus become a significant social problem. Road accidents in Sri Lanka have also become a major problem from the perspective of the transportation sector, negatively affecting the sustainable development of the nation and causing massive losses to the economy. The economic cost of road accidents has been estimated at over Rs. 10,000 million annually which is, as per Kumarage at al., around 1% of Sri Lanka’s GDP. As per the statistics of the Traffic Police database, the most important factor for road accidents in Sri Lanka is aggressive and careless and negligent driving while speeding, which is the primary cause of road accidents, while driving under the influence of alcohol or driving while intoxicated and making errors of judgment have become secondary reasons. These factors only indicate the primary causes of road accidents at a specific time. It is important therefore to study the relative trend in different socioeconomic variables i.e., the growth of the population, the degree of motorisation, the improvement of roads, and the degree of urbanisation, if one is to ascertain the possible underlying causes for the trends in road accidents in Sri Lanka. According to Kumarage et al., the analysis of trends in the growth rate of road accidents since 1980 shows that all types of accidents reported have increased at a greater rate than the increase in population, but remains lower than the growth in the fleet of vehicles for that year. This trend shows a significant conversion as per the analysis of road accidents during the last two decades. Since past research concluded that the statistics on non-grievous accidents are unreliable due to the low rate of reporting to the Police with insurance claims, whereas grievous accidents are almost always reported and are considered reliable for the analysis of road accidents, this study by Danthanarayana and Mallikahewa focused only on grievous road accidents in Sri Lanka. Many researchers have investigated the trends of road accidents over the years, revealing the risk factors affecting the fluctuations of these dangerous events. Research conducted by Mouyid Bin Islam and Kunnawee Kanitpong in 2008 to identify the factors in road accidents through in-depth accident analysis, titled “Thailand Accident Research Centre” observed that in Thailand, road safety was directly influenced by the rising trend of motorisation and the improvement in the socioeconomic status of the Thai people. They outlined the major risk factors of road accidents, i.e. inaccurate risk assessment and late evasive action, the absence of street light facilities, and inadequate lane marking and visibility, which influenced the increase in the severity of the crash and the injury. A.O. Atubi in “Determinants of Road Traffic Accident Occurrences in Lagos State: Some Lessons for Nigeria” (2012) showed that road accidents significantly increased with the increased length of roads (kilometres), the presence of road safety corps, and the increased population. The findings of his study confirmed that better-quality highways resulted in more accidents, because drivers were, as also noted by S.O. Onakomaiya in “Unsafe at Any Speed: Toward Road Transportation for Survival” (1998) and M.O. Filani and K.T. Gbadamosi in “Spatial and Temporal Pattern of Road Traffic Accident Occurrences in Nigeria: 1970-1995” (2007), more likely to increase speed on good-quality roads, leading to more frequent and fatal accidents. G.P. Adhikari in 2016 conducted a research study to look at the trends in road traffic accidents on the Kathmandu-Bhaktapur Road after the addition of lanes (titled “Road Traffic Accidents Trends on the Kathmandu-Bhaktapur Road after the Addition of Lanes”), and concluded that there was an increase in accidents immediately after the widening of the road was completed, due to the drivers’ unfamiliarity with the increased design speed and the unchanged behaviour of pedestrians. R.H. Abdul in 2014 conducted a study on the identification of factors that caused the severity of road accidents in Ghana (titled |Identification of Factors that Cause the Severity of Road Accidents in Ghana: A Case Study of the Northern Region”). The study identified overloading and obstruction as the most significantly associated variables with accident severity in the Northern Region. M. Khalili and A. Pakgohar in 2013 showed in “Logistic Regression Approach in Road Defects Impact on Accident Severity” that insufficient road width pertaining to the frequency and the level difference between the road and shoulder pertaining to accident severity are the most crucial factors in reducing safety on suburban roads in Iran. A road accident and safety study in Bangladesh, titled “Road Accident and Safety Study in the Sylhet Region of Bangladesh” has been analysed by B.K. Banik, M.A.I. Chowdhury, E. Hossain, and B. Mojumdar in 2011. The analysis showed that a rapid growth of road vehicles and the development in economic tourism, at the same time, caused severe road traffic accidents in the Sylhet Region of Bangladesh. M. Grimm and C. Treibich in 2012 studied the determinants of road traffic crash fatalities across Indian states in “Determinants of Road Traffic Crash Fatalities Across Indian States”. The study revealed that rising motorisation, urbanisation, and the accompanying increase in the share of vulnerable road users are the major drivers of road traffic crash fatalities. S.D. Dharmaratne, A.U. Jayatilleke, and A.C. Jayatilleke in 2015, conducted a study on road traffic accidents, injury, and fatality trends in Sri Lanka from 1938 to 2013 titled “Road traffic crashes, injury and fatality trends in Sri Lanka: 1938-2013”. They found that the fluctuations of accidents during this period were parallel to the country’s political and economic development and that the increase in the number of crashes and injuries depended on law enforcement, the public transport system, and a rapid growth in vehicle numbers. A.K. Somasundaraswaran in 2006, conducted a study using the statistics of road accidents during 1989-2005 titled “Accident Statistics in Sri Lanka” and revealed that the alarming rate of vehicle ownership combined with inadequacies in road network development to support the demand for transportation were the most significant reasons for the increased number of road accidents in Sri Lanka. Accordingly, the most likely reasons for the trend in increasing road accidents are the rapid increase in the amount of travel undertaken by the population, the shift from public transport to private vehicles (which are known to be unsafe modes for travel when compared to public transportation), weaknesses in traffic rules enforcement, poor road design and the lack of safety intervention and awareness programmes. The most common findings of the literature showed that rapid motorisation, together with road development around the world, creates a higher risk for all road users, resulting in an increase in both road accidents and injuries. This study considered the fluctuations and trends in road accidents within the period from 1997 to 2017 (20 years). The selected key influential factors relating to trends in road accidents are based on the literature survey and an in-depth analysis of the economic variables and fluctuations in road accident numbers during this period. The dependent variable of the preliminary model is grievous accidents (including pedestrian accidents). Eight independent variables, namely, population, the number of operated vehicles, road-related investments, employment, the GDP (constant), railway-related investments, the per capita GDP, and the road lengths were considered. This study used secondary data acquired from the Traffic Police Headquarters, the National Budget Department, and the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. In the long run, the number of operated vehicles showed a positive relationship with grievous road accidents. The estimated coefficient is significant and consistent. The higher the number of operated vehicles the higher the number of road accidents. This positive coefficient of the road accidents model explains that the impact of a 1% increase in operated vehicles would increase grievous road accidents by 0.4%. The road length coefficient of the road accidents model is also significant and consistent. This positive coefficient of road length explains that the impact of a 1% increase in the road length would increase grievous road accidents by 1.13%. Road length elasticity of road accidents was very influential in the model. As such, the improvement of road designs, providing facilities for vulnerable road users, and proper maintenance programmes are indispensable, researchers Danthanarayana and Mallikahewa recommended, whilst also calling on policymakers to introduce new awareness programmes and campaigns to enhance road safety while imposing and enforcing rules and regulations in order to minimise the existing trends in road accidents.


More News..