ONE-YEAR PROSPECTIVE STUDY TO ASSESS THE PATTERNS OF INJURIES CAUSED BY RTA (ROAD TRAFFIC ACCIDENT) DUE TO MULTIPLE FACTORS (OVER-SPEEDING & RESTRAIN USE)

Objectives: Our research reports about the injury patterns due to the factor of over speeding on the roads also known as RTA (Road Traffic Accidents). Methodology: Our research spans over one-year prospective design that assesses the collected data of the emergency department treated RTA patients at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Lahore (October 2016 to October 2017). We further subdivided the sample patients between Group – I and II having respectively fracture patients and without fracture patients. Results: Research sample consisted of 1513 patients out of which Group – I and II included respectively 628 and 885 patients. Females were less in number as only 157 females were made a part of the research; whereas, rest of the other (1356) were males. The age group was from one to eighty-five years. Most of the injured patients were of young age group, sitting on the front seaters or driving the vehicles. A meagre strength was in a habit of using restraints. We compared restraints use and high speed of both groups in this particular research. In terms of time of accidents, most of the accidents were reported from 1200 Hours to 2400 Hours without any discrimination of group. Conclusion: The reasons behind the incident of road accidents were the same as reported in other parts of the world with a few unique and specific reasons as well. Various non-compliance reasons of RTA were over speeding, fatigue, traffic laws avoidance and non-compliance and carelessness. Their reasons are common; whereas, few were unique to this series such as lack of driving skills, lack of driving training, underage driving, kids lying in the laps of the drivers or front seaters, patience lack and excessive and unnecessary mobile phone usage while driving. Keywords: Injury Pattern, RTA (Road Traffic Accident), Fracture, Trauma and Causation