Road accidents: the death toll rising steadily, according to the CSO

The number of people died from a car accident was 79 during the first six months of 2011 against 70 for the same period in 2010. This represents an increase of nearly 13%.

The number of serious injuries has, meanwhile, increased 3.1%, from 287 to 296 during the same period. Small consolation, the number of minor injuries recorded a decline from 1 479-1 378, a decrease of nearly 11%.

The number of road accidents in all categories, is also increasing. It rose to 11,426 between January and June this year, representing an increase of 1.8% over the same period in 2010.

The number of road accidents that caused injuries increased to 1300, increasing by 4.3% over the first half of 2010.Of these, 63 accidents resulted in death of man, which we can deduce that the number of fatalities per accident is often more than one death by accident.

Some 244 accidents have caused serious injuries and 993 minor injuries. Compared to the same period last'annee, the number of fatal accidents decreased by 3.1% while the number of accidents with serious injuries increased by 4.7%. 

Between January and June this year, the number of vehicles involved in road accidents was 20,191, which is marginally higher than the 20,050 last year.

Among the motorized vehicles most often involved in road accidents, there were 40.6% of two wheels (motorcycles and mopeds), 32.1% of private cars, vans and 11.7% of 7% of bus. The CSO also notes that among the dead and seriously injured, there were 36.3% of riders, nearly 30% of passengers, 16.5% and 15.2% of pedestrians to drivers.

In this gloomy picture, we must add that there were 81 cases of "hit and run" in the first half of 2011 against 96 cases for the same period last year. The number of vehicles on the roads is one of the explanations advanced to explain the growing number of accidents.

Just in the first half of this year there were over 8100 vehicles on our roads while our road network has increased marginally. 30 June 2011, there were 392,275 vehicles on our roads.

The rate of fatal accidents on our roads which is a ratio of deaths for each 100,000 people has risen from 11.3 in 2009 to 12.7 in 2010. The figure for 2011 has not yet been compiled. The sad record for the number of deaths on our roads is 168. It was in 2008.