Nairobi News

More men are dying in road accidents than women, new figures released by the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) have shown.

Of the ‭2,693‬ lives lost in road accidents between January 2019 and October 14, 2019, 2,266 were men and 427 women, according to the latest NTSA Report on Road traffic crashes.

In 2018, 1,927 men lost their lives compared to 406 women. The authority did not deduce the factors leading to more men dying in road crashes.

At the same time, contrary to popular belief that PSV are the leading cause of fatalities from accidents, the data reveals that private vehicles lead followed closely by commercial, motor cycles and PSVs.

During the period under review, private cars caused 702 deaths, commercial vehicles 597, motorcycles 542 and PSV 411 fatalities.

Sundays, Saturdays and Fridays, in that order, retained the dubious record of days with the highest accidents fatalities with Thursday as the safest.

Meanwhile, Nairobi county leads in its category with 337 deaths, which according to the data, were fewer compared to last year were 344 deaths were reported.

Kiambu (233), Nakuru (181) and Machakos (168) followed with Migori recording the least deaths with only 32 fatalities.

The data also revealed that drivers aged between 25 to 40 years were leading contributors to the fatality numbers.

Those aged 25-29 led to 294 fatalities, 30-34 had 298 while 35-39 caused 370 deaths on the roads.

The leading causes of crashes were recorded as hit and run, followed by drivers losing control. The data reveals majority of the accidents were caused by human error (98.07) percent and vehicles developing mechanical problems contributing a negligible 1.93 percent.

State of road infrastructure did not contribute to any accidents, according to the report.

Majority of those who died in the accidents were pedestrians (1,049) followed by motorcyclists (815), passengers (554) and drivers at 262.