In the last 2 decades, more than 30 countries moved from low-income to middle-income status, a billion people were lifted out of poverty, and there were major reductions in maternal and child mortality globally. Despite this progress, middle-income countries, where over 70…
The encouraging news is that even as global population and vehicles on the roads are increasing, road traffic fatalities are leveling off.
Among young women in Bangladesh, scarves called ornas are fashionable—and deadly. When the women hop in electric rickshaws, the trailing fabric can get caught in the spinning motor behind the driver and cause severe neck injuries. Most drivers and passengers have no…
For the first time in America, dying of an opioid overdose is more likely than dying in a vehicle crash, according to a National Safety Council report. Surging overdose deaths are part of an unsettling upward trend in preventable, unintentional injury in the past 15 years,…
The latest WHO Global road safety status report documents uneven progress on traffic deaths—which have climbed to 1.35 million a year. The report found progress in 48 middle- and high-income countries thanks to robust road safety initiatives. However, no low-income country…
NEW YORK—The commitment of Mohammed Adjei Sowah, the mayor of Accra, Ghana, to make the streets of his city safer is more than a campaign promise. It’s a mission, borne of personal experience. He knows all too well the hazards of road travel in the city of 2 million. In…
Had the van that smashed into a truck on a Mexican highway, killing 13 and injuring 8, been manufactured for Canada or the US, the wreck might have been less deadly.
Since the 2014 Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone, donated ambulances have been sitting idle in a country with no emergency transport budget. But in 2019 they’ll start their engines again under the new National Emergency Medical Service (NEMS), which will take on 170 donated…
More research is needed in low-resource countries with soaring road traffic injuries and deaths. Catherine Staton, of Duke University, and colleagues found one promising strategy for research. They surveyed motorcycle taxi drivers in Rwanda, Sri Lanka and…
70% of Australian beachgoers could not id rip currents, but each year they kill, on average, more lives in Australia than bushfires, floods, cyclones and sharks combined.
