Factors affecting the Severity of Motorcycle Accidents in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Road traffic accidents have become the first leading cause of death in the young generation. among these road accidents, motorcycle accidents can be identified as the most prominent case of road traffic death. According to the statistics of Sri Lankan police (2017-2020), motorcycles have become the highest responsible vehicle in road accidents. Motorcycle has become a trend among the young generation due to their easy riding style and affordability. Therefore, it caused to increase in the number of accidents occurred in road accidents. This study, therefore, intended to determine the risk factors associated with motorcycle accidents in Sri Lanka in the year 2020. The results were obtained using three analytical methods. To identify the individual impact of factors two-way analytical methods were used. Focusing the main objective is to identify the risk factors both Binary logistic regression and ordinal logistic regression were used. In 2020, 41% of accidents have been reported as minor accidents, and 34% represented as damage-only accidents while grievous accidents have shown as 22% of total accidents. Although, only 3% of fatal accidents have been occurred in 2020. Moreover, it was found that among all the attributes of road characteristics only time of the day, gender, age of license, & human factor, condition is significantly associated with the severity of accidents. Finally, the findings derived through this study would be useful for policymakers to reduce motorcycle accidents.