Evaluation of Motorized Vehicle Crashes With Pedestrian In Mekelle City Road

Abstract

In recent years, there has been increased interest in measuring pedestrian exposure to risk in transportation research in order to understand the risk and propose remedial measures. Despite this, little has been done to understand pedestrian exposure and risk factors of crashes with pedestrians in developing countries, particularly in Ethiopia. In mekelle city from the year 2007-2015 over 1,675 road traffic accidents were occurred. Out of which, over 315 people were died, over 780 people were suffered with easy and series non-fatal accidents. The general objective of this paper was to Evaluate Motorized Vehicle Crashes with Pedestrian in Mekelle City Road. The target population considered was all motor vehicle accidents exposed to pedestrian crashes and recorded in Mekelle city of all sub cities, during the period from 2006 to 2010 E.C were included. In addition to this questionnaire to pedestrian and drivers of the city which accounts a total of 785 were distributed to them. Data for the study were collected both from primary and secondary sources, the study uses simple random sampling for driver and pedestrians and purposive sampling method for those information collected from different concerned office and stakeholders in the form of interview. Data analysis was made using descriptive statistics, the results were presented in the form of crosstab’s, pie charts and figures. Not giving priority to pedestrian, over speed, Failure to respect right hand drive, not giving priority to vehicle were the major causes of crashes attributed by traffic police. With regard to movement of the pedestrian during the accident, pedestrian got accident while crossing illegally: using left side with no pedestrian facility and using right side with no pedestrian facility were the leading risk factors for road crashes in the city. It was concluded that majority of the crashes occur in daytime than night and most of the time involve the cities active workforce. Finally it recommended that Training and awareness campaigns are vital countermeasures which should be supplemented by engineering and enforcement that could be used to make citizens aware of the injury.