Factors associated with serious injuries in road traffic crashes involving automobile and motorcycle drivers: an analysis for BR 101, 116 and 230 in the Northeast Region in 2007 and 2016
Traffic-accidents; Extern causes; Federal Highway Police; Federal Highways; Northeast Region.
The main objective of the present study was to identify the factors associated with serious traffic accidents (occurrence of serious injury/death among automobile and motorcycle drivers) in the stretches of the BR 101, 116 and 230 highways located in the Northeast Region, in the years 2007 and 2016. In order to achieve the proposed objective, traffic accident records made available by the Federal Highway Police (FHP) were used, of which 2,692 were cases related to motorcycle and motorcycle drivers in 2007 and 3,011 cases in 2016. The data were initially submitted to descriptive analysis and, later, to the inferential method using Poisson regression with robust variance. The multiple regression models were constructed in blocks, the variables included in this order: Model 1 (demographic variables), Model 2 (road/ environmental variables), Model 3 (vehicle variables) and Model 4 (presumable causes of accidents according to the epidemiological triad). All analyzes were segregated according to the year, highway and vehicle type. Among the main results, the following factors were identified as factors associated with the severely injured or deceased automobile driver's outcome in 2007: BR 101: cross-sectional (RR=2.88, p<0.10) and frontal collision (RR=1.81, p<0.05) (RR=1.11, p<0.05) and a single track (RR=1.74, p<0.05). For 2016 were: BR 101: full night (RR=1.52, p<0.05) and frontal collision (RR=1.92, p<0.05), BR 116: dawn (RR=1.83; p<0.05) and frontal collision (RR=2.55, p<0.05), BR 230: male gender (RR=3.71, p<0.05) and crossing (RR=3.45; p<0.05). They have already been highlighted as factors associated with the outcome of a seriously injured or deceased motorcycle driver in 2007: BR 101: dawn (RR=1.84, p<0.05) and frontal collision (RR=1.60, p<0.05), BR 116: friday to sunday (RR=1.37, p<0.10) and frontal collision (RR=1.35, p<0.10), BR 230: evening (RR=1.78; p<0.05) and dawn (RR=1.76, p<0.10). For 2016 were: BR 101: dawn (RR=1.47, p<0.10) and frontal collision (RR=1.68, p<0.05), BR 116: age group of 50 years and over (RR=1.32, p<0.10) and frontal collision (RR=2.10, p<0.05), BR 230: full night (RR=1.41, p<0.05) and frontal collision (RR=1.76, p<0.05). Thus, the study showed that the severity of traffic accidents are not events related only to individual characteristics, which highlights the need for intersectoral actions to prevent these occurrences.