Abbr
Main content:
Road Safety
Everybody should be safe in road traffic, but to date many people are harmed by accidents. Accidents in road traffic cause considerable more damages to human life, health and economy than in traffic by train, ship or airplane.
Affected people and foundations of life: About 24.3 million people were injured or disabled in road traffic crashes in 2004 ( 2008a, 28). The global economic costs of road crashes have been estimated to be 518 billion annually (WHO 2003, 96).
Deaths: 1.28 million people died in road traffic in 2004 (WHO 2008a, 58, 117).
Loss of healthy life-years: 41.2 million healthy life-years in 2004 (, attributable to road traffic accidents; WHO 2008a, 64).
Targets/goals: no international target.
Trend: − Road traffic deaths are predicted to increase by 67% from 2000 to 2020 (WHO 2004a, 39).
Measures: safe road design, traffic management, seat belts, helmets, day-time running lights, speed limits, and restrictions on drinking and driving (WHO 2002, 72).
Annotations
For numeric names the short scale is used:
1 billion = one thousand million = 109 = 1 000 000 000
DALYs: Disability-adjusted life years.
One DALY represents the loss of one year of equivalent full health. DALYs are the sum of the years of life lost due to premature mortality (YLL) in the population and the years lost due to disability (YLD) for incident cases of the health condition. (WHO 2004, 95f.)
Sources
- WHO 2002 – World Health Organization: The World Health Report 2002 – Reducing Risks, Promoting Healthy Life.
- WHO 2003 – World Health Organization: World Health Report 2003; Shaping the Future.
- WHO 2004 – World Health Organization: WHO Report 2004.
- WHO 2004a – World Health Organization: World report on road traffic injury prevention.
- WHO 2008a – World Health Organization: The Global Burden of Disease; 2004 Update. (ISBN 978 92 4 156371 0).
Draft (2008)
This draft is to be reviewed by experts. Your hints are welcome, please use the contact form.
Photo credit: © WHO/P. Virot
