Nearly 2,300 people lost their lives in accidents last year

ANKARA 

Some 2,282 people lost their lives and 291,151 people were injured in a total of 485,048 traffic accidents that occurred last year across the country, the traffic directorate of the police has announced.

The balance sheet, which includes statistics on traffic accidents shared by the directorate, revealed that a serious number of deaths occurred in traffic in the country last year. Of the more than 485,000 traffic accidents that occurred during the last year, 203,923 were caused by driver, 22,195 by pedestrian, 901 by road and 2,750 by passenger faults.

Some 5,691 drivers who committed red light violations gave cause for traffic accidents.

A total of 5,713 drivers who entered places where no vehicle is permitted also caused accidents in which many people lost their lives.

Despite the strict measures against driving while intoxicated, it was determined that drunk drivers were involved in 1,801 fatal accidents during the year. Some 822 drivers who went over the speed limit also caused accidents.

While many fines were given to drivers who broke the rules last year, pedestrians and passengers who were at fault also received their share of these fines.

Almost 5,000 pedestrians and more than 2,300 passengers were fined for ignoring the rules.

Approximately 4 million drivers were penalized for various rule violations, while more than 19 million vehicle license plates were fined for rule violations detected by city security cameras.

Nearly 214,000 people who drank and drove were caught by the traffic police officers during inspections.

Almost 1.3 million vehicles were also banned from traffic for various reasons.

When the accident statistics were analyzed on city basis, the province where the most people lost their lives in traffic accidents was Istanbul with 129 deaths.

While the western province of İzmir followed it with 110 deaths, 103 people died in traffic accidents in the capital Ankara last year.