Evaluation of the effect of offender motorcyclist's penalty enforcement project on the incidence of road traffic accident injuries in Tehran

Motorcyclists are responsible for a considerable part of road traffic accidents in Tehran. Recently, a specific project is planned by Tehran Traffic Police aimed on decreasing hazards attributable to motorcyclists. The main aim of this before-after study was to evaluate the effects of this project on the incidence and severity of road traffic accident injuries in Tehran. Each day constituted the study unit and data about injured patients referred to Sina hospital were collected in three different time periods. The data from May 8th 2004 (the start of project) to June 7th 2004 were collected as the intervention period; and two periods were also studied: April 7th to May 7th 2004 (one month before starting the intervention), and May 8th to June 7th 2003 (the similar period of the previous year).One thousand nine hundred and sixty five patients that were injured due to road traffic accident were entered into the study. The data were extracted from hospital records and after coding using the ICD 10 were analyzed. Daily number of accident injuries increased in the intervention period (P=0.008), but the incidence of severe injuries (P<0.001) and also head and neck injuries (P=0.001) was decreased. The offender motorcyclist's penalty enforcement project was not successful in decreasing the incidence of traffic accident injuries, although it caused a shift to less severe injuries in Tehran.