K. Rumar (1985)4
, using British and American crash reports as data, found that 57%
of crashes were due solely to driver factors, 27% to combined roadway and driver
factors, 6% to combined vehicle and driver factors, 3% solely to roadway factors, 3% to
combined roadway, driver, and vehicle factors, 2% solely to vehicle factors and 1% to
combined roadway and vehicle factors. The Philippine data5
comes similarly with the
report of investigated traffic accidents in 2001, with drivers’ errors contributing to 61% of
the total accidents, 6% for mechanical defect, 5% for bad overtaking and overspeeding
accounting to 4% of the total recorded traffic accidents. The road accidents victims were
generally pedestrian, having children more vulnerable. In June 2009, a report of the
Safe Kids Philippines revealed that some 3,600 Filipino children die due to road
accidents every year (Mosqueda, June 20096
) and posing more risk as more than 2
million children will be walking to school. Most of the traffic-related injuries that children
suffer involve pedestrians, and% percent of them are caused by bicycles, 23% by
tricycles, and 18% by motorcycles. The accidents were more often occurred during
daytime. A study in Patna, India revealed that 70% of the road accidents occurred
during the day compared to 30% of accidents in the night with the most productive age
group (31-45) accounting to 40 -55 percent of the victims (Singh and Ashish) 7
. Road
networks were also seen as contributory to accidents, this along with the signages and
the structural design of the road and the capacity of the road networks. Patna accidents
were more often in the old bypass (Singh and Ashish8
). Young drivers in the United
States were also the most involved in the highway fatalities with 16 to 34 years old
comprising the bulk of the individuals involved in the accidents which lead into
legislation of restricting the young people on the road (Kodrat,1999)8
. The fact that the
US Congress responded to the drunk driving of the young people indicates the
seriousness of the problem posing risk to the pedestrian and to properties.