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Summary Turkey is among the ten countries constituting almost half of the global traffic accident deaths. As regard to their frequencies, health and economic outcomes, traffic accidents must have a priority in public health agenda. From the epidemiological perspective, within the vehicle, person and the environment components; person (driver, occupant, pedestrian) (99.12 %) is the most responsible component for the traffic accidents. According to the accident statistics, drivers have the biggest defect share with a 95 % ratio. Main components of the driver defect are; speed, alcohol and substance use, sleep and fatigue, not using safety belt, child car seat and helmet. Related legislation has been developed in Turkey but is not applied as it should be.The United Nations has developed a Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 to decrease the traffic accidents and burden of disease all over the world and especially in the low and middle-income countries. The objective of this article is to draw attention to the problem of road safety and traffic accidents in Turkey.