57 die in road accidents during first six months of the year

[stefan]

The number of road accidents reported at police stations from January to June 2003 stood at 9,457 against 8,976 for the same period last year, showing an increase of 5.4 percent, according to official statistics published by the Central Statistics Office
Among these accidents, 57 were fatal, 107 caused serious injuries, 911 resulted in slight injuries and the remaining 8 382 were non-injury accidents. During the same period, 215 «hit and run» cases were reported at police stations against 131 in the corresponding period of last year. Of these 215 cases, 170 were accidents involving vehicles only and the remaining 45 involved both vehicles and pedestrians.

Compared to the corresponding semester of last year, fatal and slight-injury accidents decreased by 27.8 percent and 6.6 per cent respectively while serious-injury accidents increased significantly by 64.6 per cent. xml:namespace prefix "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" At the end of June last, 270 450 vehicles were registered at the National Transport Authority (NTA). This figure represents a net increase of 4 609 vehicles (1.7 percent) as compared to end December 2002 when the number of registered vehicles stood at 265,841.

The composition of the fleet by type of vehicle shows that around 45.8 per cent (124,003) were motorized two-wheelers, 38.6 per cent (104,303) were cars and dual-purpose vehicles while the remaining 15.6 per cent comprised vans (22,099), lorries and trucks (11,381), buses (2,473) and other vehicles (6,191). As regards vehicles involved in road accidents, the total number for both motor and non-motor vehicles involved was 17,549 from January to June 2003, as compared to 16,585 for the corresponding period of 2002 - 46.5 per cent were private cars, 19.8 per cent vans and 10.5 per cent motor/auto cycles.