Background Traffic-related injuries are the largest cause of premature morbidity and leading cause of death among the youth in the UAE. Those injuries are relatively neglected. Our aim was to study epidemiology, risk factors and outcome of hospitalised injured patients 15–24 years in order to give recommendations for prevention.

Methods We prospectively studied all youth patients with traffic-related injuries admitted to Al Ain or Tawam Hospitals, Al-Ain City, or who died after arrival to the hospital, during an 18 months period. Demography, location and time of injury, other body region, severity, hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) stay were analysed.

Results 333 patients having a mean age of 20 years (SD 2.5) were studied. 87.1% were males and 71.5% were UAE nationals. The most common location for injury was highway and street (82.8%) followed by off-road (7.2%). Majority of injured patients (69.6%) were drivers or front-seat passengers, followed by back seat passengers (15.6%), motorcyclists (8.7%) and pedestrians (4.5%). Rollover was most often crash mechanism (29.7%), followed by front crash (29.4%) and side-angle (16.2%). 15% of patients were ejected from the car during rollover crash. Evening (18–24) was the most common time of the day (33.5%) and Sunday the most common day of the week (20.1%) when crash occured. 19.8% of the patients were admitted to the ICU. Median Glasgow Coma Scale was 15 (Range 3–15), Injury Severity Score 5 (1–41), Revised Trauma Score 12 (7–12) and median total hospital stay was 3 (Range 1–73). 9 (2.7%) patients died.

Conclusions Young UAE-national males are at a higher risk of being injured at traffic. Rollover crash was frequent with high risk of ejection. Promotion of traffic safety and enforcement of safety legislation is neccesary.