More than 2 road traffic deaths happen every minute, WHO says

When it comes to who is most impacted on the roads, 53 per cent of all traffic fatalities are vulnerable road users, including pedestrians which make up 23 per cent.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is warning that road safety is still an urgent global issue, even though it notes progress has been made over more than 10 years.

The number of annual road traffic deaths has fallen to 1.19 million per year, amounting to about a five per cent drop since 2010, according to a WHO report published Wednesday.

The WHO’s 2023 global status report on road safety states pedestrians, cyclists and “other vulnerable road users” still face an “acute and rising risk of death,” with more than two deaths occurring per minute and more than 3,200 per day.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus delivered comments on Wednesday during the release of the report and said while some action has been taken, it’s still not enough.

“That is 1.2 million people who set out on a journey maybe to walk to school, to go shopping, to see a friend or to go on a holiday, and that journey was their last road,” Ghebreyesus said.

The report showed that the number of traffic deaths varies dependent on where people live, with the highest proportion found in WHO’s southeast Asian region where 28 per cent of deaths globally occurred. This was followed by 25 per cent in the Western Pacific region, 19 per cent in the African region, 12 per cent in the Americas, 11 per cent in the eastern Mediterranean and five per cent in the European region.

Though the numbers are still unwanted, the director-general noted several countries had seen a drop in traffic-related deaths between 2010 and 2021, with 10 — including Japan, Denmark and the United Arab Emirates — able to reduce the rate by more than 50 per cent. Another 35 countries also made progress, reducing deaths by 30 to 50 per cent.

In terms of region, they too saw adjustments with about a 36 per cent reduction in the European region, while the African region dropped by about 17 per cent.