1 Traffic Safety Issues for the next Millennium

Independent studies by both the World Health Organisation and the World Bank in 1990 have estimated that about 500,000 people lose their lives each year as a result of road accidents and over 15 million suffer injuries. A recent TRL study has reported a realistic estimate for the year 1999 for global road deaths to be between 750,000 and 880,000 (Jacobs et al, 1999). The majority of these, about 70 per cent, occur in those countries classified as low or middle income with a further 18 per cent from the Middle Eastern, Central and Eastern European countries.