Rush hour traffic might be maddening, but the figures show you're far more likely to be involved in a traffic accident when driving between 9am and 3pm. 

Statistics published by the National Statistics Office reveal that there were 3,891 traffic accidents - approximately 43 a day - in the third quarter of the year. The figure is 1.9 per cent higher than that of Q3 2016, although casualties fell by 2.1 per cent to reach 502. 

Almost half of those accidents - 1,696 - happened at some time between 9am and 3pm, with a further 765 crashes in the afternoon hours between 3pm and 6pm. 

The Northern Harbour district registered the highest percentage of those accidents, with more than one in every three (35.6 per cent) happening in the region. 

When broken down by locality, Birkirkara emerges as the most accident-prone town in the country, with 8 per cent of crashes happening there. The second-ranking locality, St Paul's Bay, was far behind with 4.8 per cent. 

Traffic accidents in Q3 spiked on Wednesdays and were least frequent on Sundays. But while Sunday motorists appear to have a safer ride at first glance, the data shows that they tend to fare worse whenever they do crash, with Sundays registering the highest casualties-to accidents ratio of all week, at 17 per cent. 

Some other key figures from the NSO data set: 

    • Of the 502 casualties in Q3, the vast majority (340) came from vehicle-with-vehicle collisions. An equal number involved pedestrians (74) or property (71).

    • More men (312) were injured than women (190), but women were disproportionately represented among the number of fatalities, with six women killed and two men. 

    • 259 drivers were slightly injured in traffic accidents between July and September 

    • Of the 502 injuries, two in every three features a passenger car. Roughly one in every four involved a motorbike.
    • Most casualties involved people aged 41 to 59 (almost 30 per cent). In total, people aged 18 to 59 made up roughly 75 per cent of all traffic injuries. 

 

 

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