Carnage On World’s Roads Drops Slightly, But U.S. Is An Outlier

19.02.2024 - 15:21 / forbes.com

“ A death toll of 1.19 million is way too high a price to pay for our mobility… we need to do more. The rates of deaths in the United States are seven times higher than in Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.” — Dr. Etienne Krug

The annual, global traffic crash death toll decreased slightly to 1.19 million from 2010 to 2021, but there are still more than two deaths every minute, over 3,200 per day, and road crashes remain the leading killer of children and young people aged 5–29 years.

Those are the highlights of the “Global status report on road safety 2023,” released in December by the World Health Organization (WHO), the lead road safety agency for the United Nations. The report, the fifth in a series on measuring progress in reducing traffic deaths around the world, found that even though there has been notable progress in the last decade – a drop of 5%, or 16% if the rise in the world’s population is considered – road crashes remain an urgent global health crisis.

Vulnerable road users - people not protected by a car or other enclosed vehicle – face “an acute and rising risk of death.” Pedestrian deaths rose 3%, accounting for 23% of global fatalities; cyclist deaths rose nearly 20%; and there was a notable spike in road traffic deaths in the United States, an outlier among high-income countries.

Etienne Krug, director of the WHO’s Department of Social Determinants of Health, spoke with Forbes about the new report. Dr. Krug’s responses were edited for clarity and length.

Forbes: What is your reaction to the main findings in the report?

Dr. Krug: The report gives us hope, showing that efforts by some countries, with support from WHO and the international community, are paying off. Road traffic deaths were reduced significantly in 45 countries by 30% or more, and 10 of those countries achieved a remarkable 50% or more reduction.

In the four previous reports, there was always an increase in deaths. This the first time that the numbers have gone down globally. That is very encouraging because it shows that road safety is possible provided there is political will and top-level decision making to say ‘okay, enough is enough.’

Were there any notable surprises in the report?

In previous reports we saw reductions in road deaths only among high-income and middle-income countries. Now we have decreases in countries of all income levels, which shows that it is possible regardless of a country’s income level. All of this happened in the context of a big increase in the world's population and more than doubling the vehicle fleet during the time period covered in the report.

The fact that something can be done about this was already clear in many European countries, Japan, New Zealand, and