The Middle East and North Africa apprehension the worlds headlines when there’s a confrontation, a terror outbreak or a bloody direction crackdown. But the bereavements caused by soldiers and gangsters are tiny associated to the bloodshed that the county’s residents generate getting behind the wheel of a car.
Some 72,000 people died in road coincidences in 2007, the last year for which proportional data are available, in the countries ranging from Morocco to Iran, according to data compiled the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO). That’s more than twice the number in the US, even nevertheless the Middle East’s inhabitants of 390 million that year is just 60% bigger and the number of carriages on the road is far slighter.
WHO believes the death toll on the region’s roads is considerably higher – perhaps 120,000 — because many countries don’t report all their fatalities. They are very high. There about 32 per 100,000 population and the global average is about 18.8 and in the European region it’s about 13,” Tami Toroyan. Who is responsible for WHO global reporting on road safety, told The Media Line, citing estimated 2004 numbers. “In the Middle East it’s a leading cause of death, but it hasn’t received public attention.”
The UN organization is just getting interested in road safety and published its first report comparing international rates of road accidents in 2009. WHO is worried that as the world grows wealthier and more people take to the road, the number of accidents will grow. Seven years ago, road accidents were the ninth leading cause of death around the world; by 2030 they could be the fifth, outpacing HIV/AIDS and lung cancer, according to WHO.
As it launched on May 11 its “Decade of Road Safety,” Toroyan is compiling new data that will serve as a benchmark for measuring whether the next decade’s worth of efforts at reducing traffic accidents succeeded. Among poorer countries, the rate is higher – Libyans died in automobile accidents last year at a rate of 40.5 per 100,000 people, just behind Egypt’s 41.6. That makes Egypt the second-deadliest place in the world to drive after the tiny Cook Islands, whose 13,000 people suffered six deaths in 2008.
