Turkey’s high rate of road crashes

Turkey’s high road death rate continues to cause concern in the country. In 2016 there were around 7,300 road fatalities in Turkey, data from the Turkish statistics office, TUIK, has revealed. Of these road deaths 43.5% were vehicle drivers, 33.1% were passengers and 23.4% were pedestrians. The TUIK data shows that there were 185,128 crashes of sufficient seriousness either to cause major injuries or fatalities. Of the road deaths during 2016 in Turkey, 3,493 occurred at the scene of the crash with 3,807 injuries being so serious as to result in fatalities in at medical facilities within 30 days. Meanwhile 303,812 people suffered injuries in crashes. In all there were around 1.182 million road crashes in Turkey during 2016, with driver error being the primary cause according to TUIK research.