Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

9
CHAPTER
SMALL-SCALE HAZARDS: THE CASE
OF ROAD TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS
As noted in Chapter 7, a hazard is a potentially damaging
event that causes loss of life or injury, property damage,
social and economic disruption, or environmental degradation.
1 A number of less frequent and smaller-scale hazards
influence safety and security in urban areas. Yet, while
hazards that trigger large-scale disaster events and thus
cause huge losses are well documented, smaller-scale
hazards that result in aggregate loss over a longer period of
time are often not recorded. Fire, flooding, building collapse
and traffic accidents are some of the small-scale hazards
common to urban areas.
The significance of small-scale hazards is particularly
illustrated by the incidence and impacts of road traffic
accidents, which result in more deaths worldwide each year
than any large natural or human-made disaster type. Traffic
accidents cause extensive loss of human lives and livelihoods
in urban areas, killing over 1 million people globally every
year. 2 An absence of systematic data collection on the
incidence and impacts of traffic accidents, however, leads to
their invisibility to urban planners and policy-makers.
This chapter examines the trends and impacts of road
traffic accidents in urban areas. The substantial human and
economic losses from traffic accidents and their linkages to
processes of urbanization are elaborated upon. Traffic
accidents are examined here in detail because, in aggregate,
they cause more loss of human life and economic productivity
than larger-scale natural and human-made disasters.
Furthermore, it is important to consider traffic accidents in
urban development since they are the products of policy
failures and omissions, not of urban life per se.
INCIDENCE AND IMPACTS
OF ROAD TRAFFIC
ACCIDENTS: GLOBAL
TRENDS
Traffic accidents, which are reviewed here from a human
settlements perspective, include those involving road-based
motorized and non-motorized vehicles of various capacities.
Traffic accidents range from major events resulting in high
loss of human life to everyday incidents whose impacts are
only felt at the individual or household level. They pose a
serious threat to the safety and well-being of urban households
on a daily basis by generating economically and socially
unsustainable outcomes. It is thus important to review
traffic accidents as a key hazard threatening the safety and
security of urban inhabitants.
The following discussion first examines the global and
regional incidence and impacts of traffic accidents through
lives lost and economic losses. Different vulnerability factors
are then explored since the distribution of traffic accident
loss in urban areas is not random. In analysing the impacts of
traffic accidents, comprehensive and comparative analysis of
risk and loss at the national and city levels is difficult since
data is not available for some potentially high-risk locations.
Mortality should be seen as a tip-of-the-iceberg measure of
loss. Data on those injured is less reliable, with many cases
not being reported, and therefore has not been used in this
report. Indirect impacts are also difficult to analyse with
current available data.
Impacts on human lives
Losses to traffic accidents are commonplace and needlessly
deadly aspects of urban life. The scale of impact of traffic
accidents at the aggregate level is disturbingly large. The
World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 1.2 million
people are killed in road crashes each year, and as many as
50 million are injured. 3 In effect, 3242 individuals die daily
from traffic accidents worldwide. 4 Projections indicate that
these figures will increase by about 65 per cent over the
next 20 years unless there is new commitment to enhance
prevention. Indeed, by 2020, road traffic injuries are
expected to become the third major cause for disease and
injury in the world. Nevertheless, the everyday nature of
traffic accidents means that they attract less policy and
media attention than the consequent high loss rates deserve.
Currently, a disproportionate 90 per cent of the
deaths from traffic accidents worldwide occur in low- and
middle-income countries. 5 Table 9.1 presents a breakdown
of the distribution of reported traffic mortality by world
region for the year 2002. Separate data is presented for
middle-, low- and high-income countries within each world
region. It is the low- and middle-income countries in Africa
Traffic accidents
cause extensive loss
of human lives and
livelihoods in urban
areas, killing over 1
million people
globally every year
…a disproportionate
90% of the deaths
from traffic
accidents worldwide
occur in low and
middle-income
countries