Women and road traffic injuries in Malta : a data-driven analysis

Abstract

Women are involved in road crashes less than men, however, due to their physiology women are more likely to be injured or killed in crashes of similar severity (Brumbelow and Jermakian, 2022). A female’s physiology is one of the reasons why they are considered vulnerable (Cronn et al., 2024); other reasons include the fact that they are carers of other family members and they engage in more active mobility, particularly walking and use public transport more than men (Kawgan-Kagan, 2020). Furthermore, as crash victims are overwhelmingly male, road safety related research is strongly male-oriented (Ehsani, Michael and MacKenzie, 2023).

This paper provides an insight on the female perspective from a car-dominated case study - Malta. The research describes the epidemiology of road traffic crashes involving women in Malta. Spatio-temporal patterns using machine learning and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) of injury, serious injury and fatalities utilising seventeen years of national crash data obtained from the Malta Police Force are identified.

Malta is an archipelago and an EU member state that is situated between Sicily and Libya. The total area is 316 Km2 and the population is 0.56 million of which 47 per cent are women (National Statistics Office [NSO], 2024). Malta has the densest population - 1,823 people/Km2 (NSO, 2025) among the EU-27 (European Commission, 2025). It has 762 Km of road/100 Km2 (Transport Malta, 2016) and there are 797 motor vehicles/1000 inhabitants (NSO, 2023). Passenger cars composed 75.8% of licensed motor vehicle (NSO, 2023), supporting the fact that Maltese inhabitants are car-dependent. This situation and weak sustainable mobility policy in Malta have led to a few alternative options to the car (Bajada and Satariano, 2025). Unsurprisingly, car users feature the most in road traffic crashes – 57% and women-related crashes compose 34.5% (NSO, 2023a).

Data related to road traffic crashes in Malta includes no injury and injury. The former data are collected by the Local Enforcement System Agency (LESA) and the latter are collected by the Malta Police Force (MPF). This study is based on the data collected by the MPF, which includes four injury classifications: insignificant, slight, grievous and fatal. When compared to other countries, the fatalities in Malta are below the EU average 30/1,000,000 inhabitants out of 46/1,000,000 inhabitants (Eurostat, 2025), yet every fatality and injury is a person that has had their life terminated or traumatised.