Causes of road accidents in northwestern iran in the period 2010–2018

Traffic accidents are one of the major causes of death and disability worldwide. The aim of this study was to determine the causes of road accidents in northwestern Iran in the period of 2010–2018.

This cross‑sectional study was performed on all road traffic accidents recorded by traffic police of West Azerbaijan Province during 2010–2018. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Chi‑square t‑test, and time series by SPSS 16.

A total of 95,788 registered accidents were included in the study. Most of the accidents were in September with the frequency of 9960 cases (10.4%), in residential, office, and industrial regions 58,550 (56%), by cars and taxi 80,949 (66%), in collisions between a vehicle with a bicycle and a motorcycle 56,728 (58%), in front‑to‑rear and right‑side crashes 49,714 (47%), in rural and main roads 59,855 (62%), in clean weather 73,887 (73%), and on Thursday 14891 (15%); the occurrence of traffic accidents showed a significant relationship with all of these variables (P = 0.001).

Month of accident, type of accident, day of the week, location of accident, use of vehicle, type of collision, mode of collision, accident path, and weather were the effective factors contributing in the occurrence of the traffic accidents. It is suggested that, in addition to educating people regarding the prevention of traffic accidents, policymakers take steps to improve the safety and standardization of roads and increase the safety of vehicles.