Abstract:

Introduction: Road traffic accident refers mainly to any accident involving at least one road vehicle, occurring on a road open to public circulation, and in which at least one person is injured or killed. Road traffic accidents are a recognized dominant cause of injury and death among teenagers worldwide and in Malaysia. Road traffic accidents and injuries is a public health problem worldwide. In 2002, there are 1.2 million people die as a result of road traffic accidents and 50 million are injured and disabled. It is also the 11^th cause of death in the world and accounts for 2.1% of all deaths globally.

Methods: This is a descriptive cross sectional study that targeted form six students as our population in 6 different higher secondary schools in Muar with 280 respondents. Data was collected through a 12 items of multiple structured questions and 5 items of feedback questions, which of overall 17 items of questions in our questionnaire

Results: Among 280 respondents, 84.6% of them had met with an accident. Majority of the respondents are male (90.7 %), Malay (89.9 %), and come from a low income background (97%). Surprisingly, there are 66 (90.4%) have not attended a driving lessons while 82 (94.3%) of them did not have a driving license. Among the entire respondent surveyed, 76 (96.2 %) of them did not wear seatbelts or helmets. The remaining 43 which is 15.4% of them had not met with an accident. There is a significant association between motor vehicles accidents towards driving lessons (P=0.001), driving license (P=0.001), usage of seatbelts or helmets (P=0.001)

Conclusion: Our study shows that there was a significant association between road traffic accident and injuries with not having a driving license, not attending driving lessons and usage of seatbelts or helmets.

Recommendation: Our government should implement strict rules and tough penalties such as increasing fines and summon as to curb traffic accidents. For the awareness, schools have a role to play by emphasizing the importance on road safety, like usage of seat belts, proper driving practice by organizing awareness campaigns and seminars which is given by road traffic officers. The media also needs to draw the attention of all road users both to dangers and to safe practices on the road.

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