Publication: Road Safety
Loading...
Published
2003-09
ISSN
Date
2012-08-13
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
In 1999, between 750 000 and 880 000 persons died in road crashes worldwide, and another 23 to 34 million people were injured. The situation is particularly critical in low and middle income countries (LMCs) where about 86 percent of deaths from road traffic injuries occur even though these countries account for only 40 percent of all motor vehicles. The graph shows that the situation has been worsening in LMCs since 1987. There are strong social, health and economic reasons to reduce the burden of road traffic injuries (RTIs): a) casualties affect mostly economically active persons and have a ripple effect on their dependents, causing suffering and poverty; and b) crash victims represent between 30 and 86 percent of all trauma admissions. They tend to stay in hospital longer than average patients. Developed countries have been relatively successful in reducing the burden of RTIs. This shows that more, better targeted and sustainable investment can prevent RTIs and reduce the damage that results from crashes. Poorer countries clearly need a new and broader approach to road safety.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2003. Road Safety. at a glance. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9724 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Transport for Health : The Global Burden of Disease from Motorized Road Transport(Seattle: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, 2014-03-31)This report summarizes the findings of a long and meticulous journey of data gathering and analysis to quantify the health losses from road deaths and injuries worldwide, as part of the path-finding Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study. It is important, first, to acknowledge the profound contribution made by the lead authors and global team of injury prevention professionals to estimate the disease burden of road trauma, before absorbing their findings and recommendations. Without their dedication and tenacity, the way forward would be less certain. The first GBD study, published nearly two decades ago, signaled an emerging road safety crisis in developing regions of the world. It triggered a remarkable program of global advocacy that culminated in the United Nations decade of action for road safety and global plan to bring road safety outcomes under control in these regions by 2020. However, limited investment has been mobilized so far to implement the UN initiative. The second GBD studies, and related analyses presented in this report, confirm the importance of road safety as a global development priority and the urgency with which it must be addressed. The report's findings highlight the growth in road deaths and injuries globally, and their substantial impacts on maternal and child health, despite sustained reductions over the last three to four decades in high-income countries. Combined with the deaths arising from vehicle pollution, the road transport death toll exceeds that of, for example, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, or diabetes. This statistic further reinforces the call for global action. Without these GBD estimates we would not have a clear picture of the true situation because official country data in the developing world vastly understate the scale of road transport health losses.Publication Federative Republic of Brazil(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-11-01)As part of a long-term partnership between the World Bank and Brazil, the Federal Government of Brazil sought the World Bank’s assistance to review road safety management capacity in Brazil, building both on past experiences in the country and international best practices. This National Road Safety Management Capacity Review, therefore, was prepared by the World Bank, with the support of the Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF). The primary objective of the review is to evaluate the multi-sectoral capacity of road safety management in Brazil, identifying possible road safety challenges and presenting recommendations to address these challenges. The methodology of the review, in accordance with the guidelines of the World Bank Global Road Safety Facility, focused on examinations of key functional aspects of road safety, including institutions, legislation, financing, information, and capacities at all levels of government and among non-government actors. The review was prepared mainly based on interviews of key road safety stakeholders at the federal, state, and municipal levels, members of parliament, NGOs, and the private sector, in addition to direct inspection of roads and on-road behaviors, and the analysis of published research and reports on road safety. In addition, information and understanding gained from previous reviews of the states of São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, and Bahia were also incorporated.Publication Dangerous Roads : Russia’s Safety Challenge(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-07)As in many countries of the Europe and Central Asia Region (ECA), vehicle ownership in Russia has grown faster in the last decade than the decline in the rate of fatalities per vehicle. At the same time, road safety policies and interventions have not kept pace with the boom in motorization. In 2008, the motor vehicle fleet in the country exceeded 41 million cars, up 24 percent from 2004, and the number of drivers licensed increased by 40 percent during this period. In 2008, Russia saw nearly 30,000 road traffic deaths and about 271,000 non-fatal road traffic injuries. While these figures represent a drop of 13 percent from 2004, Russia's road traffic mortality rate is still five times higher than what is seen in several European Union (EU) countries, about twice more than in the United States, higher than in other Eastern European countries such as Poland and Hungary, and higher than the average for Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries.Publication The Challenge of Non-Communicable Diseases and Road Traffic Injuries in Sub-Saharan Africa : An Overview(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-06)This report draws on a comprehensive review of the literature and on input from policy makers, researchers, and practitioners to address four questions: (1) how is the growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and road traffic injuries (RTIs) changing the epidemiology of Sub-Saharan Africa? (2) What determines and drives this burden, and what are the commonalities with communicable diseases? (3) What is the rationale for public intervention? (4) How could resource-constrained governments approach NCD prevention and treatment and road safety in a comprehensive, effective and efficient way? The data show that action against NCDs and RTIs in Sub-Saharan Africa is needed, together with continued efforts to address communicable diseases and maternal and child health as well as to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The report suggests that NCDs and RTIs should not be tackled separately as a vertical program, nor should they displace communicable diseases as priorities. Instead, given resource constraints, and some shared determinants, characteristics, and interventions, there is scope for an integrated approach focusing on functions (prevention, treatment, and care) rather than on disease categories. Examples are cited of potential opportunities to integrate and add NCD prevention and treatment into existing services and programs. Proven, cost-effective, prevention interventions are clearly needed, many of which (such as tobacco and alcohol taxes, road safety measures, and fuel-efficient ventilated cook-stoves) require action beyond the health sector. These can deliver broader development benefits in addition to their benefits for health. Selective, evidence-based actions to reduce NCDs and RTIs will address the changing disease burden in Africa and achieve a more sustainable improvement in health outcomes, more efficient use of resources, and better equity across patients and populations.Publication Walk Urban : Demand, Constraints, and Measurement of the Urban Pedestrian Environment(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-04)"Overall support for the pedestrian environment," or walk ability, has grown increasingly important as the world urbanizes and motorized modes threaten to displace or constrain travel on foot. This concern encompasses virtually every aspect of the pedestrian experience. Walk ability takes into account the quality of pedestrian facilities, roadway conditions, land use patterns, community support, security, and comfort for walking (Litman). Each of these facets of the pedestrian environment impacts the use of walking as a primary mode of transport. The complexity of the urban pedestrian environment naturally lends itself to micro-level analysis to locate the need for improvements; however, to gain an overview of a city, it is necessary to develop macro-level indicators that can identify the general state of the pedestrian environment. While these indicators cannot diagnose all walk ability problems, they can give a sense of how one urban area compares to another in similar circumstances and they have the potential for becoming an influential aspect of World Bank urban infrastructure diagnosis. Urban Transport indicators are being reviewed as one component of the current Transport Results Initiative which is led by the World Bank's central Transport Unit.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Lebanon Economic Monitor, Fall 2022(Washington, DC, 2022-11)The economy continues to contract, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Public finances improved in 2021, but only because spending collapsed faster than revenue generation. Testament to the continued atrophy of Lebanon’s economy, the Lebanese Pound continues to depreciate sharply. The sharp deterioration in the currency continues to drive surging inflation, in triple digits since July 2020, impacting the poor and vulnerable the most. An unprecedented institutional vacuum will likely further delay any agreement on crisis resolution and much needed reforms; this includes prior actions as part of the April 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-level agreement (SLA). Divergent views among key stakeholders on how to distribute the financial losses remains the main bottleneck for reaching an agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda. Lebanon needs to urgently adopt a domestic, equitable, and comprehensive solution that is predicated on: (i) addressing upfront the balance sheet impairments, (ii) restoring liquidity, and (iii) adhering to sound global practices of bail-in solutions based on a hierarchy of creditors (starting with banks’ shareholders) that protects small depositors.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.