Deadly crashes soar over 10 years in Turkey, statistics show

ISTANBUL

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The number of deadly crashes has risen by as much as 90 percent over the past 10 years in Turkey, parallel to a percentage increase in the number of all crashes, including fatal ones, over the same period, statistical data from the Turkish Statistical Institute shows.

Between 2005 and 2014, the data shows, the number of deadly crashes rose from 87,273 to 168,512, while the total number of crashes rose to from 620,789 to 1.2 million.

The number of all types of crashes increased by 93.1 percent, a relatively higher rate than the number of vehicles in Turkey, although the number of vehicles also rose significantly (68.9 percent) over the 10-year-period.

Data shows the number of vehicles as only 11,145,826 in 2005, while this number rose to 18,828,721 in 2014.

The number of injuries has risen despite a relative fall in the number of deaths over the past ten years, data shows.

While 4,505 deaths were recorded in 2005, this number dropped to 3,524 in 2014. The number of injuries recorded in 2005, however, was 154,086 and 285,059 in 2014.

For the crashes occurred in 2014, 88.6 percent of the crashes happened due to driver failure or misconduct, 9.4 percent due to pedestrian wrongdoings, 1 percent due to road inconvenience, and 0.5 percent due to vehicle defects.

Data says that driver failures and misconduct leading to fatalities included the inability to optimize the vehicle speed according to weather and road conditions, crashing into another vehicle, not abiding by rules of shifting between lanes, incompliance with passing priority and non-abidance by the rules of traffic maneuver.

The highest number of deadly crashes in 2014 occurred in August, while the least amount of crashes occurred in February the same year, according to the data.

Data also shows most of the deadly crashes occurred on Fridays, with a percentage share of 14.8, while 
the least traffic accidents occurred on Tuesdays in 2014.

Some 65.9 percent of the deadly crashes during 2014 occurred at daytime, while 34.1 percent of them happened at night, data shows.