Road traffic accident
What is a road traffic accident?
A road traffic accident is when at least one vehicle is involved in an accident on a road that is open to traffic and there is at least one person who is injured or killed.
What are the causes of road traffic accidents?
There are many different factors that can contribute to a road traffic accident.
Some include:
- Over-speeding
- Rash driving
- Violation of rules
- Failure to understand signs
- Fatigue
- Driving under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol
Additionally:
- Failure to recognise danger
- Insufficient driver knowledge
- Pedestrian errors
- Car passengers distracting driver
- Car light failure
- Car tyre burst
- Unsafe road conditions (i.e. potholes, eroded road, diversions, etc)
- Weather conditions (i.e. heavy snow, heavy rain, wind storms, hail storms, etc)
What are the different types of road traffic accidents?
Different types of road traffic accidents are:
- Rear-end collision: When one car hits into the back end of the car in front of it.
- Side-impact collision: When the front or back end of one car hits the side of another.
- Sideswipe collision: When the adjacent sides of two cars collide.
- Rollover: When a car flips onto its side or roof.
- Head-on collision: When two cars hit both front ends from opposite directions.
- Single-car accident: When a single car is involved, but there may be many variations of the accident.
- Multiple-vehicle pile-up: When there are many vehicles involved, they can be hit multiple times and from multiple directions.
Which road traffic accidents are most common?
The five most common types of road traffic accidents are:
- Vehicle rollover
- Single-car accident
- Rear-end collision
- Side-impact collision
- Head-on collision
What are the causes of death in road traffic accidents?
As there are many different types of road traffic accidents, there are also many different causes.
However, the leading cause of death amongst car traffic accidents is distracted driving. This is most common in drivers between the ages of 15 and 20 years old.
Other leading causes of death include:
- Excessive speed
- Misuse of alcohol
- Fatigue
- Driving upset
- Not using seatbelts
- Night driving with hazardous conditions
What are the road traffic accident statistics?
As of June 2020, there were 24,407 killed or seriously injured casualties reported to police in the UK. Reports and statistics on public roads in the UK can be found on the government website.