Fascinating piece in the Economist
of Jan 25 on road accidents. At present, they kill about 1.3 million people a
year – not far short of the number who lose their lives to tuberculosis, but
the World Health Organisation expects the total to reach nearly 2 million by
2030, well outstripping tb deaths and catching up with AIDS as a killer.
The biggest increase is expected in the poorest countries, with deaths
almost tripling. One of the main reasons being that when money is invested in
new roads, little is spent on safety.
Already, road crashes are the main cause of death worldwide for people
aged 15 to 29, with most victims men and boys. In poor countries, most of the
people killed are pedestrians, while in developing countries such as Thailand,
it tends to be motorcyclists.
In the developed world, better safety measures have seen road deaths actually
being reduced. New York now has fewer than it did 1910, while
Sweden has halved the number since 2000, cutting them by 80% since 1970.
*My updated website - http://www.disasterhistorian.com/index.html
No comments:
Post a Comment