This study was conducted at Jawaharlal Institute of Post
Graduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER)
Hospital, Pondicherry, South India from 1st January to 31st
December 1994. The study group-consisted of all the RTA
victims reporting to JIPMER casualty in the above one year
period.
For the purpose of the study, a Road Traffic Accident
(RTA) was defined as accident, which took place on the road
between two or more objects, one of which must be any kind
of a moving vehicle. Any injury on the road without
involvement of a vehicle (e.g. a person slipping and falling on
the road and sustaining injury) or injury involving a stationary
vehicle (e.g. persons getting injured while washing or loading
a vehicle) or deaths due to ROAD TRAFFIC ACCIDENT were excluded from the study.
The victims of the accidents were interviewed to obtain the
information about the circumstances leading to accident. A
pre-tested proforma specially designed for this purpose was used for interviewing the accident victims, either in the
casualty or in the wards of JMR Hospital. Where the
condition of the victims did not warrant the interview, the
relatives or attendants were interviewed. The information
collected consisted of personal identification data, time, date,
day and type of vehicles involved in ROAD TRAFFIC ACCIDENT, protective gear worn
and category of road users. The medico-legal records and case
sheets were referred for collecting additional information and
where necessary for cross-checking.