Each six seconds, someone, wherever becomes the object of a traffic coincidence. He or she is most likely to be an African or Asian pedestrian, cyclist or motorcyclist, statistically the most vulnerable road users.
The twelve-monthly toll taken by the world’s conveyances is 1.2 million deceased and 50 million offended, affording to the World Health Organization (WHO), which undertakes that by 2030 road traffic chances will be the fifth major killer international. Among persons aged 15 to 29, they are previously the important cause of death.
This wide-ranging has been remunerated too little courtesy for too long, claims the Allianz Risk Pulse report on Mobility and Traffic Safety, printed by the Allianz Center for Technology (AZT) today.
The key for global road safety is to bridge that gap between rapid economic growth and the reduced road deaths achieved by EU states like Germany, for example.
What’s required is “a new safety culture” argues AZT. The risk experts call for legal and social frameworks for road safety to be strengthened. Behavioral change, on the part of all road users, can be encouraged through two types of safety measures: passive and active.
Passive measures include the wearing of helmets and seatbelts. Active measures include stricter regulations for the granting of driving licenses, laws combating drinking and driving, the construction of safer streets, as well as education campaigns.
“The goal of reducing the world’s road accidents can be achieved only by a joint effort to optimize operating liability, legal certainty and the willingness of the drivers to rethink their behaviour”, says Christoph Lauterwasser.
Statistically, the “death risk per mileage travelled” is highest for pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. For example, in Indonesia 61 percent of traffic deaths are of 2- and 3-wheeler drivers or passengers. Income is therefore “a major factor in becoming a victim to a traffic accident.”
– Although fatality rates correlate with poverty rates, economic growth does not necessarily deliver better road safety. The World Bank predicts large increases in accident rates and fatalities in prospering economies like India and China as motorized traffic increases.
