Age of a passenger car and its influence on accidents with fatalities in Poland

The article concentrates on road safety in Poland, which is one of the countries with a high number of fatalities in European Union. As the passenger cars are the mostly involved in traffic accidents with fatalities, this type of vehicles was analyzed to check relationship between age of the vehicle and its involvement in accidents with fatalities. This type of scientific analysis was made for the first time. For carrying out this research, a method of estimating passenger car fleet in motion in Poland was designed, as the official data were not updated and provided wrong information. The updated information on passenger car fleet when compared with that on the age of vehicles involved in road accidents with fatalities showed that the age of a vehicle has influence on the occurrence of road accidents in Poland. Presented data showed that the fact that people involved in accidents are at a higher risk of loss of life depends on the age of a vehicle. The data from analysis conducted between 2014 and 2015 showed that the risk of being killed increases with the age of the vehicle. Chances of the loss of life of people involved in accident participants are three times more in the case of more than 21 year old cars compared to 5 years old cars.