Human Death Due to Road Traffic Accidents in Sidama Regional State, Ethiopia: A Finite Mixture Count Regression Analysis

Background: The Sidama region is one of the Ethiopian regions facing high burdens of human death due to road traffic accidents. Objective The aim of current study was to identify the determinants of human death due to road traffic accidents in Sidama regional state, Ethiopia. Methods A total of 291 road traffic accident data collected from July 2020-June 2021 was obtained from the department of traffic control and crime investigation, Sidama region. The two-component zero inflated finite mixture models (2-ZIFMM) to accommodate the unobserved heterogeneity of the traffic data used in the analysis. Results Out of the 291 accidents recorded in the region, nearly 47% of them had resulted in at least one human death. Drivers who were between 17–30 years old had accounted the highest proportion of road traffic accidents in the region (66.7%). About 87% of the total traffic accidents took place on the dry road condition in the region. A driver who had the least (1–5 years) driving experiences had caused nearly 2 times higher road traffic accident that had resulted human deaths compare to drivers who had 5 and more driving experience, on average. The main source of human death due to traffic accidents was due to motor motorcycles that were caused during vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle to pedestrian crash because of drivers were over speeding. Conclusions Drivers in the younger age, road type, whether condition on the road, driving in the mid-day (12:00–2:00 pm) had increased incidence rate of human death due to road traffic accident in the region. The government and other stakeholders should create over all awareness among drivers and set strong restriction on the legal age for driving license, should monitor and evaluate the service years of drivers and the vehicles.