Road traffic injury trends in the city of Valledupar, Colombia. A time series study from 2008 to 2012

Objective: To analyze the behavior temporal of road-traffic injuries (RTI) in Valledupar, Colombia from January 2008 to December 2012. Methodology: An observational study was conducted based on records from the Colombian National Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences Institute regional office in Valledupar. Different variables were analyzed, such as the injured person's sex, age, education level, and type of road user; the timeframe, place and circumstances of crashes and the vehicles associated with the occurrence. Furthermore, a time series analysis was conducted using an autoregressive integrated moving average. Results: There were 105 events per month on an average, 64.9% of RTI involved men; 82.3% of the persons injured were from 18 to 59 years of age; the average age was 35.4 years of age; the road users most involved in RTI were motorcyclists (69%), followed by pedestrians (12%). 70% had up to upper-secondary education. Sunday was the day with the most RTI occurrences; 93% of the RTI occurred in the urban area. The time series showed a seasonal pattern and a significant trend effect. The modeling process verified the existence of both memory and extrinsic variables related. Conclusions: An RTI occurrence pattern was identified, which showed an upward trend during the period analyzed. Motorcyclists were the main road users involved in RTI, which suggests the need to design and implement specific measures for that type of road user, from regulations for graduated licensing for young drivers to monitoring road user behavior for the promotion of road safety. © 2015 Rodríguez et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

• Fecha de publicación: 2015
• Institución: Universidad del Rosario
• Repositorio: Repositorio EdocUR - U. Rosario
• Idioma: eng
• OAI Identifier: oai:repository.urosario.edu.co:10336/19017
• Acceso en línea: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0144002; http://repository.urosario.edu.co/handle/10336/19017
• Palabra clave: Criminología; Sex Factors; Traffic; Motorcycles; Female; Middle Aged; Accidents; Statistics And Numerical Data; Risk Factor; Humans; Motorcycle; Urban Area; Trend Study; Traffic Safety; Traffic Accident; Sex Difference; Road Traffic Injury; Pedestrian; Observational Study; Motorcyclist; Major Clinical Study; Educational Status; Accidentes de tránsito; Peatones; Tráfico urbano
• License: Abierto (Texto Completo)