The causes of moped and motor-cycle accidents, the character of the injuries inflicted and the after-effects have been studied. The accident involving one vehicle only has proved to be the most common type of accident. Low age and defective familiarity with their vehicles are frequent among the drivers involved in accidents, and quite often there is also some form of illicit driving. The majority of the injuries have been sustained in spare-time driving - only 16.1 per cent of the injuries were incurred in utility traffic. Protective clothing, other than the crash-helmets that are now obligatory, is seldom worn. The greater part of the injuries inflicted are of orthopaedic character and fractures form 25.4 per cent of all injuries. 42 per cent of all injuries had affected the lower extremities. Hospital records show that 23.8 per cent of all the persons injured were so seriously injured that they had to be hospitalized. The average in-patient treatment time was 30.8 days; the orthopaedic injuries required an average of 43.1 treatment days, the surgical injuries 10.6 days. 64.8 per cent of all in-patients had injuries that made operations necessary, the average number of operations per patient being 2.6 and the average operation time 3.5 hours. On the basis of the inquiry material, the average sick-leave period after moped and motor-cycle accidents has been estimated at 83 days. 22 per cent of the patients whose injuries required hospitalization displayed, after the healing of the injuries, objectively determinable sequelae, and among the remaining 78 per cent minor post-accidental complaints are no doubt frequent.
Abstract