Identification and Empirical investigation of the risk factors involved in road accidents in Bangladesh

The problem of deaths and injury as a result of road accidents is now acknowledged to be a global phenomenon. As a result, authorities in all low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) of the world are now concerned about the growth in the number of people killed and seriously injured on their roads. Hence, my aim in writing this dissertation has been to provide a better understanding of the determinants of road accidents in LMICs. The current thesis contained three essays to examine, theoretically and empirically, the factors influencing road traffic accidents (RTAs). The first study applied a systematic literature review to investigate what are the risk factors that mainly contribute to road accidents and their severity, in order to find out, and possibly fill the previous research gaps. In the second paper, I used probit and bivariate probit models, on data collected from Islam et al. (2018) in Bangladesh, to investigate what are the main factors that can increase the individuals’ awareness about RTAs and help them to be informed about road traffic rules. The results showed that gender, road accident experience, availability of media connections, educational qualifications, job characteristics, place of residence and having received previous training about road traffic rules can improve an individual’s awareness level of road traffic accidents and knowledge of traffic rules. In the third paper, I used probit and Heckman selection probit models to investigate the significant factors affecting RTAs and crash injury severity. The Heckman probit model has been estimated with maximum likelihood methods with correction for sample selection bias, to provide consistent and asymptotically efficient estimates for all the parameters in the model. The result found that unawareness of RTA risks, high family incomes, residing in rural areas, and being married were the main factors significantly related with the probability of being involved in RTAs. Other factors significantly related to the level of injury severity were the accident location (city areas and highways), type of vehicles (four-wheeled), lack of adequate street lighting and speed control signs, driving the wrong way, and not holding an educational degree. The main contributions of this thesis, which distinguish it from other studies that have been conducted previously in different countries (including Bangladesh) lay on the novelty of the data collected and on the originality of some of the methodologies and results of the empirical analysis. The main implication of this study is that these studies provide new empirical evidence to support the government and non-government organizations to reduce RTAs and the resulting rate of injuries and fatalities. The resources and attention by road safety management authorities on the current finding should be strengthened and increased, so that they can regularly monitor and improve road safety, by acknowledging the factors that let people be aware of RTAs and increase their knowledge about traffic rules