The Police annual crime report released last week has indicated that in 2024, more accidents happened during the weekend than on other days of the week.
Digesting the report on Monday, AIGP Lawrence Niwabiine said there were more accidents on Fridays(3689), Saturdays(3765) and Sundays(3790) compared to other days of the week.
Tuesdays reported the lowest number of accidents at 3330 crashes compared to other days of the week.
“We realised that the cause of these accidents over the weekends is speed and intoxication. Majority go to leisure places, get intoxicated and jump into vehicles and drive and later kill others on the road,” Niwabiine said.
Time
The police annual crime report also indicated a bigger percentage of crashes happened between 4pm and 5:59pm indicating that most accidents happened during the evening hours.
This period accounted for 3780 accidents, followed by the time between 2pm and 3:59pm which recorded 3216 accidents.
The report also shows that most fatal crashes happened between 4pm and 5:59pm , followed by the time between 2pm and 3:59pm.
The report also indicates that accidents involving vehicles hitting civilians were the highest at 19.5% of all crashes, rear end collisions and side swipes at 16.2% and 17.7% respectively.
“Head on collisions accounted for 13% and angle collisions for 10.5% of all crashes. 9% of all crashes were single vehicle crashes. Collisions where vehicles hit other parked vehicles, hit objects on road, hit objects off road and hit animals accounted for 1.6%, 1.5%, 1.8% and 0.8% respectively,” Niwabiine said.
He noted that careless overtaking and speeding were the leading causes of road crashes in 2024, accounting for close to almost half (44.5%) of all crashes registered during the year.
Following too close, dangerous vehicle condition, passing too close, sudden turning, sudden entrance, careless pedestrian and violating traffic direction were the other causes of accidents.
The figures also show that more motorcyclists at 1,720, pedestrians at 1,666, passengers on motorcycles(676) and passengers in other vehicles(438) died in these accidents.
Traffic Police director, AIGP Lawrence Niwabiine said it high time interventions are brought to curb the increasing accidents resulting into deaths on Ugandan deaths.
“The numbers of deaths have crossed a red line and should be treated as public health concern. The 5144 deaths in 2024 from road crashes has reached public health concern we need to contain it at strategic level. The injured have an impact on our labour force that is being weakened and productivity of labour force is decreasing if this trend is not addressed urgently,” Niwabiine said.