Brainstorming Questions:

1. Do you know someone who is victim of a traffic accident? Talk about what happened to him/her?
2. How much does road traffic accident affect individuals/ family/ country?

Passage 1

Magnitude of Road Traffic Accident

Road traffic accident is a major public health and development challenge. Every year nearly 1.3 million people lose their lives on the road and as many as 50 million others are injured. Globally 17 road fatalities per 100,000 populations per annum are reported. Road traffic accident is the second leading cause of death in economically active population group of 15–44 years of age; further, more than 75% of Road traffic accident casualties occur in this age group. In many countries, the estimated economic loss due to road traffic accidents is as high as 3% of their gross domestic products.

The burden of road traffic accident is disproportionately high in low- and middle- income countries where over 85% fatalities and 90% of disability-adjusted life are reported. Fatalities related to road traffic accident are at least two-times common in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income countries. The average death rate in middle low – and middle- income countries is 23.6 per 100,1000 population. Globally road traffic accident fatalities remain more or less constant since 2007. However, in many developing countries the rates are increasing. Especially, Africa faces the highest annual rate of road fatalities in the world– 27 per 100,000 populations. Rate of road traffic death between 2013 and 2017 was 26.6 per 100,000 populations. In the next few decades, the problem can even rise due to the ongoing rapid economic growth and increase in motorization in the continent.

Despite the growing burden of road traffic accidents, road safety remains a neglected issue in many developing countries and the health sector has been slow to recognize it as a priority public health problem. A large body of evidence suggests that road traffic accidents are easily preventable and many high income countries have successfully reduced the incidence through proven and cost-effective interventions. The Sustainable Development Goals, Goal-3, sets an ambitious target to halve the global number of fatalities and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2020.

Like many African countries, Ethiopia is facing enormous road safety crisis. According to the estimate of the World Health Organization (WHO), the prevalence of road traffic fatality in Ethiopia was 25.3 per 100,000 populations and the rate is among the highest in the world. Factors contributing to the high incidence of road traffic accidents in Ethiopia include rampant reckless driving behaviors, poor road network, substandard road conditions, failure to enforce traffic laws and poor conditions of vehicles.

Road traffic accident also brings huge economic loss to the global economy in every fiscal year. Reports on the road traffic crashes indicate that cost of developing countries reaches between 1–2% of their Gross Domestic Product. Ethiopia is one of developing country with high traffic accidents, costing the country around 0.8% – 0.9% of the GDP, around 1.3 billion dollars. Globally, the annual cost of road crashes is in excess of 500 billion dollars, and in the developing world the estimated cost is about 65 billion dollars each year. In African, the current estimate of cost of accidents is 3.7 billion dollars per year.

(Adapted from WHO, 2018 report)

Passage 2

Evidence on Road Traffic Accident

The number of vehicles per inhabitant is still low in Africa: less than one licensed vehicle per 100 inhabitants in low-income Africa versus 60 in high-income countries. Fleet growth leads to increased road insecurity in developing countries. This explains, for example, the reported 400% increase in road deaths in Nigeria between the 1960s and the 1980s. Available historical data from developed countries show that the road mortality starts to decrease only when a development threshold is achieved. Such a threshold is far from being reached in sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, in South Africa, the most developed African country, there were already 17 licensed vehicles per 100 inhabitants in 2005, but no decline in road traffic deaths has been observed so far.

African nations dominate the list, in the WHO report highlighting the gap between high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries. Of all road traffic deaths, 90% occur in developing countries despite low- and middle-income countries have only 54% of the world’s vehicles. As the report points out, there’s a significant link between the risk of road traffic deaths and a country’s income level. While road traffic deaths in high-income countries average 8.3 deaths per 100,000 people, in low-income countries the average is 27.5 deaths per 100,000—a more than three-fold increase.

The severity of road traffic crashes is also likely to be much greater in Africa than anywhere else, because many vulnerable road users are involved, but also because of the poor transport conditions such as lack of seat belts, overcrowding, and hazardous vehicle environments.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the global capital for road traffic deaths. The World Health Organization has released its Global Road Safety report 2018, and named Libya as the nation with the highest rate of road traffic deaths – some 73.4 deaths per 100,000 people every year. Following Libya in second place is

Thailand, with a rate of 36.2

–by more than half smaller than Libya’s. The third is Malawi, with a rate of 35 deaths per 100,000. In some countries the reported deaths are very low, for example 22 in Chad, 43 in Gabon, 58 in Central African Republic. There may indeed be relatively few road deaths in these countries but it is much more likely that they are significantly under-reported.

Two countries alone account for almost fifty per cent of all reported deaths, namely South Africa and Nigeria. The South African value of over 9,000 appears to be consistent over time. For example, it was at about the same value in the mid 1980’s. Nigeria on the other hand at 6,185 deaths is now showing a dramatic reduction from a high of over 9,200 just a few years ago. Other countries also showing significant numbers of deaths include Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Ghana. The 42 country total of 35,394 deaths and the individual national totals are significant underestimates of the true totals.

However, the overall picture that emerges is that fatality rates in most African countries lie in the range 50 to 150. This compares with most Latin American countries which are in the range 10 to 35 or Asian –Pacific countries which are in the range 8 to 37. Thus whilst some figures are of doubtful accuracy, it can be said that the highest fatality rates world-wide are to be found in Africa.