Traffic accident deaths decreased 10 pct in 2018

ANKARA

The death toll in traffic accidents decreased to 6,675 across Turkey in 2018, with an annual decline of 10.1 percent, data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) revealed on May 30 showed.

“As a result of 186,532 accidents involving death or injury occurred in Turkey during the year of 2018, 3,368 people were killed at the accident scene and 3,307 people who were injured in traffic accidents and sent to health facilities died within 30 days after the accident due to related impacts,” TÜİK said in a statement.

Some 307,071 others were injured in traffic accidents across Turkey in 2018, while 1,042,832 accidents caused material loss but no casualty, TÜİK said.

In 2017, a total of 7,427 people had died in traffic accidents on the country’s road network and 300,383 people had been injured.

The death toll was at the lowest level since 2014, when the accident follow-up data including the deaths within 30 days after the accidents were started to be added.

The total traffic accident death toll was 7,530 in 2015 and 7,300 in 2016.

Number of traffic accidents up 2 pct

On the other hand, the total number of accidents increased to 1,229,364 in 2018, with an increase of 2.2 percent compared with the previous year.

“Among the people killed in the accidents occurred in the road network of Turkey during the year 2018, 42.9 percent of them were drivers, 34.9 percent were passengers and 22.2 percent were pedestrians,” TÜİK also said.

The majority of faults causing traffic accidents were of drivers with 89.5 percent and the rate of pedestrian faults was 8.4 percent. They were followed by passenger faults with 0.9 percent. Vehicle and road faults each made up 0.6 percent of the faults causing accidents.

Day-time on a Saturday in July was the most likely time to be involved in a traffic accident, whereas being on the road in the twilight on a Tuesday in February was much safer, according to the statistics.