A total of 22 people - 16 men and six women - died in traffic accidents throughout last year, new figures released today show.

Eleven were drivers, three passengers, seven pedestrians and one was a cyclist.

Four men and a woman lost their lives in traffic accidents in the last three months of 2016, the National Statistics Office said this morning. 

The NSO said the number of reported traffic accidents in the last quarter reached 3,392, down by nine per cent over the same period in 2015. This averaged to about 37 accidents per day.

Traffic casualties dropped by 12.6 per cent to 375 over 2015, of which 236 (62.9 per cent) involved drivers. The number of slight injuries sustained by drivers was 207, with 26 cases reported as grievous.

Another 31 persons (14 passengers and 17 pedestrians) suffered grievous injuries. There were also 65 passengers and 41 pedestrians who were slightly injured. The injuries suffered by three drivers and two pedestrians were fatal.

The largest number of traffic casualties (64.3 per cent) were caused by passenger cars, followed by motorcycles (23.7 per cent) and goods-carrying vehicles (10.1 per cent).

Three of the five fatalities were caused by motorcycles, one by a passenger car and another by a goods-carrying vehicle.

The highest traffic casualty rate occurred on Thursdays, accounting for 15.5 per cent of total casualties, while the highest number of accidents was recorded on Fridays.

Sundays topped the highest casualty-to-accidents ratio, with 17.9 per cent compared to an overall average of 11.1 per cent.