Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Who gets killed on the road?

Originally posted on "Otterman speaks...", 02 Oct 2003. Updated and stats table appended.

According to the traffic statistics in the Singapore Police Force's Annual Report 2000/1, motorcyclists and their pillion riders are the single largest road user group involved in accidents - accounting for 46% of road fatalities in 2000/1 and 52% of people slightly or seriously injured. The sheer numbers make them a specific target group for road safety measures by the police. Trends point to peak hour accidents and younger riders.

But if you look at fatalities amongst all accidents for 2000/1, the fatality rate for all accidents is 2.1% (407/19,308). This is contributed largely by the fatalities by motorbikes and their pillion riders at 1.9% (187/10,029). Motorcar drivers and passengers are relatively safe at 1% (47/4,584). Cyclists on the other hand have a 3.9% (27/689) fatality in reported accidents and for pedestrians, its 6.1% (113/1,852)!

[Update} In 2002/3, there is an increase in fatalities from accidents in most groups including the two most vulnerable: 6.3% (0.2% increase) for pedestrians and pedal cyclists see the largest increase of 0.6% to 4.5% (see 2002/3 data below.

I am missing estimates for number of road users by user group. Considering the relatively small number of cyclists on the road, the 27 fatalities are high. But I can understand Traffic Police being more concerned, for now, about the 10,000+ injury-resulting accidents involving motorbikes.



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