Abstract

Road traffic crashes have been emerging as a serious public health hazard in Trinidad and Tobago where the number of road fatalities on an annual basis have become sufficient cause for alarm. Notwithstanding the implementation of measures to curb the spate of fatalities on the nation's roadways, the enforcement of such measures continues to be weak and as such, is perceived to be having no impact on the threat to road safety. Among the principal threats to road safety are the physical, attitudinal and behavioural antecedents that underlie lapses in the carriage of road users. Thus, more efficient use of limited protective resources is a critical requirement toward reinforcing enforcement standards. To this end, the paper seeks to investigate temporal patterns and the host of road user characteristics that are likely to be associated with such patterns. Evidence is drawn from a micro-level data file consisting of 1319 cases of fatalities that occurred in Trinidad and Tobago between January 2003 and December 2009. Discriminant analysis and cluster analysis are the statistical techniques that permit statistical analyses using SPSS. The results are presented and discussed in the context of decision-making initiatives that ought to be adopted by the various organs of civil society as means of reducing threats to road safety.