[sustran] Road crashes a growing world cause of death

[Paul Barter]

Kerry Wood wrote, in response to the article that I forwarded to the list:
>>Traffic accidents, now killing half a million people a year worldwide,
>>will soon be the world's third leading cause of death after heart disease
>>and strokes, U.S. experts predicted on Tuesday.
>
>Does this mean that motor vehicles are already the leading cause of death -
>if you include heart disease due to lack of exercise - bacause of always
>taking the car?

Tony Barry responded:
>Road kill, heart disease, come ON. these are all developed country death
>causes. Most of the world dies from malnutrition related and similar
>diseases. These statements MUST be wrong.

I take your point, Tony.... but I think there may still be cause for
concern. Up to a point you are quite right. Road deaths are NOT YET
cause-of-death number three.  The statement about road deaths being number
three was a prediction for the future (the article wasn't specific about
which year, sorry). The report said that currently road deaths are number
nine cause of death worldwide (and you are right, poverty-related causes of
death are right up there at the moment).

Presumably the report made certain assumptions about economic change over
the next decade or so.   I assume they expect many low-income countries to
become middle-income countries.  AND middle-income countries tend to have
high road death rates and increasingly also have high heart disease rates.
So Kerry's point is premature but not totally off the mark.

Currently, road deaths per head of population are higher in middle-income
countries like Malaysia, Korea, Thailand, etc.. (due to high death rate per
km  along with a middle-level amount of driving) than they are in
high-income countries (with LOTS of driving but low death rate per km
driven).  However it IS true, as you point out, that in very low income
countries there is so little motorised driving that high death rates per km
do not amount to high death rates per 100,000 people (except perhaps in the
big cities where vehicles are concentrated.. eg Delhi?). Here are some
figures from various sources.

                                                 Road deaths per 100,000
USA 1993                                                 15.6
Malaysia   1995                                       28.5
South Korea 1994                                    34.8
"low-income countries" ~1990                ~7
"lower-middle income" ~1990               ~11
"upper-middle income" ~1990               ~20
"high-income income" ~1990                 ~13
(these estimates for income groups are from a graph in  World Bank (1995)
"Sustainable Transport: Priorities for Policy Reform" (p. 65 citing IRF
data).

I know less about the heart disease stroke side of the argument but for
example, I believe Malaysia's rate for heart deaths has passed Australia's
(please correct me if I am wrong).

>Of course these people wouldn't need so much food if they could drive
>around instead of walking :(

This joking comment hints at the fact that better access and basic mobility
would help poor people more than it would harm them.  No argument there I
think.   A number of participants on this list have been involved in trying
to enhance access and basic mobility for the poor and disadvantaged people
to basic mobility (eg. access to non-motorised vehicles, basic bus services
or year-round vehicle access to villages).  Unfortunately,  big
mobility-enhancing projects around the world often benefit elites and fail
miserably to address the needs of the abolute poor......  So the point is
taken.

Best wishes,
Paul.

A. Rahman Paul BARTER
Sustainable Transport Action Network for Asia & the Pacific (SUSTRAN)
c/o Asia Pacific 2000, PO Box 12544,   50782 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Fax: +603 253 2361, E-mail: <tkpb at barter.pc.my>
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