The Scale of the Issue

Recent conservative estimates suggest that, in 1999, between 750,00 and 880,000 people died as a direct result of road accidents.1 The World Health Organization (WHO) puts the number even higher—at 1.171 million people.2 About 85 percent of these deaths occurred in the developing and transitional economies; about onehalf were in urban areas. In addition, between 25 and 35 million people were injured in road accidents worldwide, of which up to 75 percent were in urban areas. The economic cost of the accidents in the developing world has been estimated at $65 billion, which is approximately equal to the total annual aid and lending of the international institutions to these countries. For the developing countries, the economic cost of accidents is estimated to be between 1 and 2 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP). Road accidents currently rank ninth as a cause of deaths worldwide, and are expected to rise to sixth by the year 2020. Even more significant, because many of the people killed are relatively young, road accidents already rank second in terms of reductions in l ife expectancy. In Bangladesh, it is reported that nearly 50 percent of hospital beds are occupied by road-accident victims.3