Spectacular advances in health and health related sciences has brought down the morbidity and mortality due to communicable diseases and has resulted in longevity of people. At the same time, globalization has improved the socio-economic status resulting in more use of vehicles and the travel, further resulting in increased number of RTAs. Thus the entire spectrum of non communicable diseases and accidents has come to the forefront of health care delivery system.

According to WHO, deaths from road traffic accidents account for around 25% of all deaths from injury. The total number of road traffic deaths and injuries worldwide is forecast to rise by some 65% between 2000 and 2020. About 1.3 million people die each year as a result of road traffic accidents and are the leading cause of death among young people, aged 15–29 years.

Over 90% of the world's fatalities on the roads occur in low-income and middle-income countries, even though these countries have less than half of the world's vehicles. Nearly half (46%) of those dying on the world’s roads are vulnerable road users (pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclist. Without action, the road traffic accidents are predicted to result in the deaths of around 1.9 million people annually by 2020 [1].

‘Road accidents’ cases in India have marginally increased by 0.7% during 2013 as compared to 2012, while casualties decreased by 1.2%. A total of 4,75,625 traffic accidents cases were reported during the year 2013 comprising 4,43,001 RTA cases and these accidents accounted for 1,37,423 deaths due to RTA.

The analysis of road accident deaths by various mode of transport revealed that 34,187 persons (24.9%) were riding on two-wheelers, 24,081 (17.5%) were occupants of truck/lorry, 14,803 (10.8%) were travelling in car and 12,055 (8.8%) were killed while travelling in buses and most of the victims of accidents deaths were under age group of 15 to 44 years. 66 deaths per day were by truck/ lorry and 94 deaths were by two wheelers [2].

1. To study the sociodemographic profile of RTA cases
2. To know the type of road users and the counterpart involved in the road traffic accidents

For first and third weeks of every month, the days selected were Monday, Wednesday and Friday while for second and fourth weeks of the month, the cases were interviewed on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.

Data processing and statistical analysis: Statistical analysis was done using SPSS version 20.0.The data were summarized using percentages and frequency. Significant difference was determined by using chi-square test and standard error of difference between two proportions (Z test) and the difference was accepted significant at p value <0.05.

Table 1 shows the distribution of RTA cases according to the different age and sex groups. It was found that majority cases were males (89.6%) and females were only 10.4%. Overall age distribution shows that maximum cases (40.0%) belonged to 16-30 years age group followed by 31-45 years age group (25.8%) and only 6.1% cases were of < 15 years age. This age wise variation was statistically significant (p<0.05). Among males distribution was similar to overall distribution, being maximum in 16-30years age group, followed by 31-45 years (42.3% & 27.6% respectively). Thus, in males majority (69.9%) cases occurred in 16-45 years age group which is the productive age. On the contrary in females, maximum RTA cases (34.1%) occurred in 45-60 years age group followed by 22.7% cases in <15 years age group. Statistically there is highly significant difference between sex variation in various age groups (chi square test) and among different age groups all the individual age groups (Z test) except above 60 yrs age (table 1).

Table-1: Age and sex wise distribution of RTA cases.

*Mean age= 35.6 yrs with SD of 15.66 yrs, mean age of male = 35.3 yrs, mean age of female =35.4yrs

*Modified Kuppuswami Scale-2012

Out of total 425 RTA cases, 62.6% were illiterate, whereas only 8.6% were educated above high school and around 10% each were educated up to primary and middle classes respectively. It is also clear seen from the table that maximum (42.3%) were laborers by occupation followed by 30.4% as skilled workers (driver/ artesian/electrician). 8.9% were housewives and2.7% were unemployed. According to modified Kuppuswami scale (2012), it was seen that majority (82.8%) of the cases belonged to upper- lower social class while another 11.2% belonged to lower- middle. Very few (1.4%) belonged to social class I &II (table 3).

Table 4 & 5 shows the distribution of RTA cases as type of road users and as per their age and sex. It was found that two wheelers users were most common cases followed by pedestrians (38.4%&37.6% respectively) , while users of non motorized vehicles were least common suffers (7.3%).When type of road users were studied according to age group, it was observed that in all age group except 16-30 yrs, pedestrians were most commonly involved. In <15 yrs age group, 69.3% pedestrians were injured, followed by two wheelers (19.2%). Among 16-30 yrs age group, two wheeler users were involved in 52.4% instances, while pedestrians were involved in 27.1% instances. In 31-45 yrs and 46-60 yrs age groups, a similar trend was observed , pedestrians(42.8% &37.2% respectively) being most commonly involved followed by two wheelers(35.4% &32.1% respectively). Among > 60 yrs most commonly involved road users were also pedestrians (48.8%) followed by NMV (26.8%). Statistically there is significant association between type of road users and the age group (table 4).

Table-4: Distribution of RTA cases according to type of road users and age

Patil S S et al [9] also observed that the maximum (29.4%) cases were between 20- 29 years of age. Among males 16-30 years age group (42.3%) was the most commonly affected, while among females the most common age group was 46-60 years (34.1%). Gudadinn M. R [10] found that the maximum (30.9%) of cases were in the age group of 20-30 yrs both in males and females as compared to our study. Sharma Deepak et.al [11] found that in males the most common age group involved was 21-30 years (31.8%) whereas in case of females the highest number of cases was seen in the age group of 31- 40 years (21.9%). This sex difference may obviously be due to the fact that males tend to travel more for work related and other purposes as compared to females. Majority (72.0%) were urban dwellers, while 28.0% were from rural areas. However Mishra B et al [7] and Viren Kaul et.al [12] found that majority of the cases in their studies were from rural areas as compared to urban areas. This variation might be due to the location and catchment area of the hospital as the present study has been conducted in a tertiary level hospital located in the heart of the city. In the present study, 65.8% were married. Similarly Singh Abhishek et.al [13] & Singh R K et.al [14] found that most of the cases who suffered from accidents were married. The apparent occurrence of road accidents more among married may be due to the other determining factors for RTA like age rather than marital status.

In the present study most (62.6%) of the cases were illiterate, while 28.8% cases had education up to high school level. This finding is in corroboration with the findings of Singh RK et.al [14] who also reported that maximum of the cases were illiterate but the proportion is lower (24.5%) than the present study followed by 16.3% were educated up to primary and middle education each. In contrast to the present study, Kumar Srinivasan P.V. et.al [6] found that 39.3% were graduates, followed by 31.1% with intermediate education. Unskilled laborers (42.4%) formed the largest group in the present study while another 21.2% cases were drivers. Similar occupation profile was noted by Bayan Pankaj et.al [15] & Singh Abhishek et.al [13] in their study. Because in the present study most of the cases were illiterate and laborers majority of the cases (82.8%) belonged to upper- lower class. Only 1.4% belonged to upper/ upper middle classes. These findings are consistent with the findings of Urfi et.al [16] where maximum cases were from upper lower class.