INTRODUCTIONRoad safety is a primary concern and goal of highway and traffic engineers worldwide. The road network in Pengkalan Chepa Kelantan exhibits relatively high traffic volumes particularly in rural areas. Kelantan is one of the state in terms of having higher numbers of road accidents leading to a relatively high number of fatalities and injuries. In the past few years in particular, the number of registered vehicles in Kelantan has considerably increased. As a result, traffic volumes and Vehicle Miles of Travel (VMT) have significantly increased leading to deteriorating traffic flows and escalating traffic congestions.Consequently, the number of road accidents has also noticeably increased in Malaysia in the past decade. Complete analysis of leading causes for road accidents in Pengkalan Chepa, Kelantan was conducted in this study.Different possible causes along with behaviours of drivers were investigated and correlated with the number of road accidents, fatalities and injuries. Pengkalan Chepa was found to have accident, fatality and injury rates that are considerably slightly higher than those of other state in Malaysia.PROBLEM STATEMENTSThe problem of this study is to determine the leading causes of road accident in Pengkalan Chepa, Kelantan. The problem of the study is to compare the relationship between the number of registered vehicles and rate of road accident.The problem of this study is to compare rate of fatality and injury rates in Pengkalan Chepa, KelantanThe table above shows the rate of accidents in different type of road in Kelantan. So this study will be carried out to identify the main causes of road accidents The relationships between three factors towards road traffic accidents happening in Pengkalan Chepa, Kelantan will be studied in this study. How do these effects the road traffic accidents will be the main focus of this research.Significance of the studyIt is imperative to research into the vehicular accident data in Pengkalan Chepa, Kelantan to come out with the reality on the ground so that;This chapter consists of a review of the literature about the main causes of road accidents in Pengkalan Chepa, Kelantan. Firstly, this chapter will begin with some overview of the rate of road accidents, followed by the definition of cause of road accidents. The last section is the review of study about the causes that may play a role in increasing in road accidents. Traffic accidents rank fifth among the leading cause of deaths in Malaysia. The country is burdened with more than ten billion ringgit of losses due to traffic accidents every year.Despite implementation of various intervention measures over the years, the number of traffic accidents continues to rise. For instance, the number of traffic accidents in the year 2007 was approximately twice the number of accidents recorded in 1997. As a conclusion, these factors may have a positive relationship with causes of road accidents. Authorities that have an aim to find solutions for the contribute factors of the road accidents in Pengkalan Chepa, Kelantan can consider this three variables.Now a day’s road accident is a major problem all over the world. The recent report says that annual average of 700,000 road accidents, 10 percentages occur in India which has overtaken China. In the year 2008, road accidents killed over 40,000 people and injured more than 1.7 million at a direct measurable cost of 45 billion euros, equivalent to 1.5% of GNP (Commission of the European Communities, 2009). The European Commission has estimated that at least one quarter of these deaths, 10 000, are due to alcohol, at a cost of 10 billion euros per annum (Official Journal of the European Communities, 2001). This is likely to be an underestimate, since the global burden of disease study of the World Health Organization estimates in European countries that 45% of the burden of disability arising from motor vehicle accidents for men and 18% for women is attributable to alcohol (World Health Organization 2002).To curb this problem, there are ways such as non-invasive biological sensor system for detection of drunk driving‖ Information Technology & applications in biomedicine, 9th international conference, (2009, PP 1-4. Shegeyki Kojima, Shinitirou Maeda, Yumi Ogura) and also emergence of Multichannel Ref-lective PPG Earpiece Sensor with Passive Motion Cancellation‖ IEEE transactions on biomedical circuits and systems, (December 2007, PP 235-242 Lei Wang, Benny PL Lo and Guang-Zhong Yang).Grandjean (1979; p. 175) defines fatigue as a gradual and cumulative process associated with ‘a loss of efficiency, and a disinclination for any kind of effort’. Fatigue increases as time-on-task progresses, for example, during a period of driving or exercise. In general usage, the terms ‘fatigue’, ‘sleepiness’, ‘drowsiness’ and ‘tiredness’ are used inconsistently and synonymously. This broad use of the word is understandable in that fatigue and sleepiness very often occur together, for example during a long drive undertaken in the afternoon. In addition, fatigue and sleepiness interact, whereby fatigue can promote sleepiness and sleepiness can elevate feelings of fatigue (Phillip et al., 2005a).. Most of the fatigue crashes occur on trunk roads and motorways, during the late evening and early morning under good conditions, when the driver has spent a considerable length of time on the road. The result is that one either goes off the road or has a frontal collision with an oncoming vehicle.Some road user categories are relatively often involved in fatigue-related crashes (Safety Net, 2009) such as people younger than 25 years old, people suffering from sleep disorders, people who drive at night, long distance drivers, professional drivers, people who work in shifts. Goldenbeld et al. (2011) showed that drivers consider fatigue driving as dangerous and that they recognize their own fatigue in themselves. According to drivers, yawning, not being able to keep one’s eyes open and loss of concentration are the most important signs of fatigue. However, far from all drivers act on this. twenty per cent indicated that they have begun driving or continued driving while they considered themselves too tired for this. For lorry drivers, this was 37%. Fatigue has a negative effect on the driving skill and road safety. Both non-professional drivers as well as professional drivers and their employers should be aware of the causes of fatigue and its road safety effects.Speeding is not just driving faster than the posted speed limit. It is also driving too fast for the prevailing weather, light, traffic and road conditions without full regard for the vehicle condition and driver skills and experience,( CARRS-Q, State of the Road: Speeding Fact Sheet, 2011). According to Sprattler,( 2012), Speeding is one of the most prevalent factors contributing to serious and fatal crashes, yet it does not command nearly as much attention as other safety issues such as alcohol impaired or distracted driving. Remember that even small decreases in your speed can reduce the number and severity of traffic crashes on our roads. (CARRS-Q, State of the Road: Speeding Fact Sheet, 2011).The purpose of doing this chapter is to explain the systematic approaches that used to study the objectives of this research. This chapter was divided into 11 sections to explain the methodology of this research, which are research instrument, specify domain of construct, measurement scales, generate sample items, hypotheses development, research framework, data collection method, sample processing, data analysis and limitation of research.The questionnaire was taken from the research conducted before by Fuller (2004), Schulze (2010), Bedard,Guyatt, Stones, & Hirdes, (2002), Guohua, Braver, & Chen(2002), Hakamies-Blomqvist,(2001). In order to coordinate the demography background of this study, the researchers have modified some of the questions. The respondents are required to answer on 5 points like scale statements to state how them might left behaved on a scale 1 to 5, where 1 = Totally disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree, and 5 = Totally agree. The questionnaire consists of six main sections.Part I – General Information,
Part II – Drink and Drive, Fatigue, Speed (IV)
Part III – Causes of road accidents in Pengkalan Chepa (DV)In this paper, the causes that contribute to road accidents are Drink and Drive, Fatigue, Speed.According to Schulze (2010), the reliability for the drink and drive is 0.87. For fatigue the reliability for it is 0.839 Fuller (2004). Meanwhile, for speed the reliability for it is 0.88 Hakamies-Blomqvist,(2001).In this paper, nominal and interval scale were used as a measurement scale. Nominal scale was used to get general information of every student that filled in the questionnaire. For example, sex (male, female). Interval scale was also being used as a measurement scale in the questionnaire. For example, such statements in the questionnaire will be answer by road users in Pengkalan Chepa what they might felt and behaved from a scale of 1(totally disagree) to scale of 5 (totally agree).There is a relationship between drink and drive towards road accidents H2 : There is a relationship between fatigue towards road accidents. There is a relationship between speed towards road accidentsPURPOSEFigure 1 : The three independent variables that causes road traffic accidents in Malaysia from the year 2009 to year 2013.