Introduction. Road safety in motor vehicles remains a serious socio-economic issue due to increas-ing number of private cars, congestion, poor quality of road network and its equipment. The number of road accidents remains high and road traffic injuries and fatalities are a pressing problem. Each year in the Republic of Buryatia there are around 1,700 road accidents in which people are injured and killed. Up to 2,500 people are injured to varying degrees of severity and up to 200 are killed. In recent years there has been a significant increase in traffic on the region's roads due to the expansion of foreign economic relations and the intensification of tourism. During the study, it was found that the number of injuries, incompatible with life varies in different years from 27,5% to 72,4% and 50-70% of people, who died on the roads of the country, could live if they had received first aid. The purpose of the study. To study the significance of the first aid to the victims of traffic acci-dents in order to reduce the trauma and mortality on the roads. Material and methods. We used data from the State Inspectorate of Road Safety, the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Buryatia, the Regional Office of the Federal State Statistics Service in the Republic of Buryatia, information and analytical papers of Russian and foreign authors, includ-ing those published on the Internet. The study was conducted using statistical and analytical meth-ods, as well as by comparative analysis. Results. Measures to improve care for victims of road accidents were taken in the framework of the Federal Target Program "Improving road safety in 2006-2012". Considerable attention has been paid to one of the factors that has a direct impact on reducing mortality such as providing first aid by eyewitnesses, the persons who were the first to arrive at the scene of the accident. For this purpose the Ministry of Health on the basis of the State Budgetary Institution "Territorial Centre of Medi-cine of Catastrophes of the Republic of Buryatia" in 2008 has created the Training Centre which purpose was to reduce severity of medical and sanitary consequences of road accidents through training of medical workers, drivers and wide groups of population in rules of the first aid to victims of road accidents. Data on the number of cases of first aid in critical situations in recent years shows a positive trend as a result of the training in first aid given to various categories of the popula-tion. In these conditions the role of interaction between the management bodies, departments and forces of EMERCOM of Russia, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Buryatia increases; the effective joint work of which during liquidation of consequences of road accidents allows considerably reducing human losses. Discussion. According to foreign and domestic studies, at least 50% of those killed in road acci-dents die in the first seconds on the scene of the accident because of injuries incompatible with life; another 30% die in the first 2 hours after the injury; 25% of those killed on the scene of an accident before the arrival of medics had a chance to survive if they had received first aid: to stop the exter-nal bleeding, to ensure airway patency, etc. The increased percentage of first aid given by drivers directly involved in the accident and by road traffic witnesses and participants illustrates a common misconception about the impossibility of first aid being given by people with no medical training.