More poor die on roads

*Light vehicles cause most frequent injuries

* Injuries, disabilities a significant drain on economy

Around one in 50 deaths in Sri Lanka is due to road accidents, said College of Medical Administrators of Sri Lanka President Dr Anil Jasinghe.

Delivering the Presidential address of the 18th annual scientific sessions of the College of Medical Administrators of Sri Lanka at Waters Edge, Battaramulla on March 25, Dr Jasinghe citing an example said when a person attends 50 funerals, the 50th could be a death due to a road crash.

“But it may not be so to most of you in this audience because a significant majority who die due to road crashes are from lower strata of the society,” he told the gathering.

Vulnerable road users like pedestrians and two wheeler users are at greater risk than vehicle occupants. They usually bear the greatest burden of injury, Dr Jasinghe added.

A study conducted by Dr Jasinghe involving 685 injured road traffic victims, showed a higher death rate of 7.82 percent among pedestrians as against 6.72 percent among vehicle occupants.

Dr Jasinghe said it is the light vehicles that most frequently cause injuries to pedestrians.

“Every fourth injured pedestrian suffered injuries due to collisions with motorcycles and every fifth injured pedestrian suffered injuries due to collisions with three wheelers,” he said.

Dr Jasinghe also said on average, pedestrians suffer more severe injuries compared to vehicle occupants as a result of road traffic crashes.

“Compared with injured vehicle occupants, pedestrians sustain more multi system injuries with concomitantly higher injury severity and mortality. Despite the size of the pedestrian injury problem, research to reduce traffic related injuries has concentrated almost exclusively on increasing the survival rates for vehicle occupants,” he said. “During the past few decades, fatality due to road traffic injuries has also increased. The fatality index for any disease is the percentage of deaths from the total number who contracted the disease. This can be applied to road traffic crashes as well,” Dr Jasinghe said. He said there is an increase in fatality index from 7.8 percent to 9.7 percent in 1988.

“This means one is more prone to get killed following road traffic crashes now, than 10 decades ago,” he said.

Dr Jasinghe also said injuries and disability resulting from road traffic crashes are a significant drain on economies, consuming between one to three percent of a country’s gross national product per annum. According to him, the total road crash cost in Sri Lanka, estimated using the human capital method for 2005 was Rs 14.17 billion which is about 15 percent of the total health expenditure for Sri Lanka during the same year.

“Injuries and disability resulting from road traffic crashes are a significant drain on economies, typically consuming between one to three percent of a country’s Gross National Product per annum,” he said. Dr Jasinghe called on the responsible, educated and the ‘so called elite group’ of the society to be mindful of these causative factors and go this extra mile to break the vicious cycle.

“This small step each one of us takes, would make a world of difference, in decreasing the road traffic crashes in our country,” he said.