Road deaths and injuries will surge by 60 per cent over the next 16 years making them a bigger global threat than HIV by 2020, says the World Health Organisation (WHO). Patrick Logue reports.
It estimates that 3,000 die and 140,000 are injured on the world's roads every day; and 15,000 are disabled for life. In 2002 crashes took almost 1.2 million lives and injured up to 50 million.
If this trend continues, in 16 years road injuries will be the third biggest contributor to the global burden of disease and injury, surpassing HIV, wars, tuberculosis, cerebrovascular disease, pulmonary disease, lower respiratory infections and diarrhoeal diseases.
Road injuries, the WHO estimates, will be number three on the list, beaten only by heart disease and unipolar major depression. In 1990 road injuries were ninth on the list.
The figures have prompted the WHO to make road safety the theme for World Health Day on April 7th next. The body hosts the event every year to promote awareness and debate on a particular issue.
This year, the body plans to release a report on preventing road injury. As part of Ireland's EU presidency, Transport Minister Seamus Brennan will have all member states sign the European Road Safety Charter on April 6th. The charter aims to reduce EU road deaths by at least 50 per cent by 2010.
WHO director general Lee Jong-wook believes many countries put "far less effort into understanding and preventing road injuries than they do into understanding and preventing diseases that do less harm."
In the World Health Day brochure published last week. Dr Jong-wook says: "Too often road safety is treated as a transport issue, not a public health issue."
Motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians remain the most vulnerable, the WHO says, as do males of all ages and older people in general. But the body is particularly targeting low- and middle-income countries which account for 90 per cent of death and disability as a result of road traffic injuries.
In broad terms western Europe, Greenland, Australia, New Zealand and Japan recorded 11-12 road deaths per 100,000 population in 2002. The US, Canada and South America recorded 12.1 to 16, while for eastern Europe, Russia, China, and India the figures rise from 16.3 to 19.
The highest death rate on the world's roads is concentrated in Africa and the Middle East where the rate ranges from 19.1 to 28.3 per 100,000.
In the EU Ireland ranks seventh out of 15 states. Britainhas the lowest road death rate, Portugal the highest.
The World Health Day theme is timely in an Irish context. Road deaths in the State are up by more than 44 per cent so far this year. At the time of writing 78 people have lost their lives since January 1st, 2004, compared to 54 for the same period last year. The figures for this year include 33 drivers, 13 passengers, seven motorcyclists, four cyclists, and 21 pedestrians.
The surge in road deaths led Fine Gael TD, Denis Naughten, to suggest last week that the penalty points system "is breaking down before it's even been fully implemented. It's no longer an effective deterrent. More and more drivers are reverting to bad habits and lives are being lost."
Brian Farrell of the National Safety Council said there was concern that the effectiveness of the penalty points system was "waning" and that "those in authority must ask what is causing this."
But, while road deaths are on the rise in the first few months of this year the overall trend is downward since the introduction of penalty points 15 months ago.
The system is to be expanded next month to include new offences of careless driving and dangerous overtaking. Speeding, non-wearing of seatbelts and driving without insurance are currently punishable under the system, which will eventually contain a list of 69 offences.
The Government's new road safety strategy will be published in the coming weeks. It aims to reduce road deaths by more than 25 per cent to under 300 in three years.