Abstract
Existing statistics indicate that more than 90% of road accidents are fatal in both low- and middle-income countries. Globally, there are 1.35 million road fatalities every year, which are estimated to cost approximately US$ 518 billion to governments, making road fatalities the 8th leading cause of death across all age groups and the leading cause of death of children and young adults. In South Africa, the annual number of road fatalities has increased by 26% in recent years, worsening the socioeconomic development of all South Africans. To understand the basis of this alarming road accident statistics in South Africa, studies focus mainly on identifying contributory factors. Whilst other studies indicated that road accident events may be more complex than thought, we have limited scientific understanding of this complexity in South Africa. The present project proposes and tests a more comprehensive metamodel that integrates multiple causality relationships among variables previously linked to road accidents. This was done by fitting a structural equation model (SEM) to the data collected from various sources. The study also fitted the GARCH Model (Generalized Auto-Regressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity) well known in financial sector to predict the future of road accidents in the country...
M.Sc. (Geography)