The stagnation of road fatality rates has happened despite the increase in global motorization and population, and the predicted rise in deaths. This suggests that efforts to improve global road safety are preventing increases that otherwise would have occurred.
In the last three years, 79 countries have seen a decrease in the absolute number of fatalities while 68 countries have seen an increase. In the same period of time, 17 countries have aligned at least one of their laws with best practice on seat-belts, drink–driving, speed, motorcycle helmets or child restraints.
While there has been progress towards improving road safety legislation and in making vehicles safer, the report shows that the pace of change is too slow.
The situation is worst in low-income countries, where rates are more than double those in high-income countries and there are a disproportionate number of deaths relative to the (lower) level of motorization. The African Region continues to have the highest road traffic death rates, with 26.6 deaths for 100,000 inhabitants (9.3 in Europe for the lowest rates). Pedestrians and cyclists account for 43% of victims.[image_frame style=”framed_shadow” align=”center” alt=”Who road safety photo” title=”The African Region continues to have the highest road traffic death rates, with 26.6 deaths for 100,000 inhabitants” height=”432″ width=”650″]https://www.car-engineer.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/news-who-road-safety.jpg[/image_frame]
The report also highlights that vehicles sold in 80% of all countries fail to meet priority safety standards.
Urgent action is needed to achieve the ambitious target for road safety reflected in the newly adopted Sustainable Development Goals: halving the global number of deaths and injuries from road traffic crashes by 2020.
The 2015 global report, the third in the series, brings together road safety data from 180 countries, covering 6.97 billion people or 97% of the world’s population. It serves as the official monitoring tool of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020, follows up on the countries’ progress and highlights where more action is needed.
Data on legislation and policies represent the country situation in 2014, while data on fatalities and numbers of vehicles are for 2013, the most recent year for which data were available.
You can read and download the full report at: http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_status/2015/en/
Source: FIA
