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Infographic Via: Road Traffic Signs
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Archive for the ‘Road Safety’ Category
Drive Safely and Drink Responsibly This Holiday Season
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011 by Guest AuthorDozens of Countries Launch Decade of Action for Road Safety
Thursday, May 26th, 2011 by Frank Gillingham, MD
At the 64th session of the World Health Assembly in Geneva, which closed on Tuesday, one of the leading topics was international road safety. With over 1.3 million deaths annually, and ranking as the leading cause of mortality among 15-29 year olds and the ninth leading cause of death for all ages, the task of making the world’s roads safe for travel is formidable, to say the least.
On May 11th, partially in anticipation of the Global Health Summit, dozens of countries around the world kicked off the first global Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020. The governments of dozens of countries as far reaching as Russia, Sri Lanka and Nigeria have committed to taking new steps to save lives on their roads. Some of the proposed actions include enacting legislation or stepping up enforcement of helmet, seat belt, child safety restraint, speeding, and alcohol intoxication laws. Only 15% of countries currently have comprehensive measures addressing all of these factors.
Pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists account for almost half of the deaths on the world’s roads. In a massive effort to curtail these accidents, part of the funding for this initiative will go towards the construction of footpaths and cycle only lanes. The World Health Organization (WHO), who will provide technical support and monitor the effort, believes that successful implementation of the proposed measures could save over five million lives between now and 2020.
None of us should have to bear the grief and devastation caused by a road traffic crash,” said Dr Etienne Krug, WHO Director of the Department of Violence and Injury Prevention and Disability. “The steps outlined in the Global Plan for the Decade are immediately doable, and will do much to spare the suffering of so many.”
Photo by Goran Zec.
Sharing the Road Safely in a Strange Land: Resources for World Travelers
Friday, February 11th, 2011 by Mike Hartung
We recently highlighted the five-year initiative to reduce traffic fatalities in ten countries. It’s led by a consortium of impressive organizations (see below). But if you’re taking to the roads of a foreign country, there are resources available to improve the odds against becoming a statistic. The Association for Safe International Road Travel (ASIRT) publishes detailed, extensive and very helpful Road Travel Reports for 150 countries. If you look over the sample they provide for Peru, you’ll find nine pages covering topics such as these:
- Driver Behaviors
- Road Conditions
- Pedestrian Concerns
- Night Travel
- Seasonal Travel
- Police Enforcement/Road Regulations
- Dangerous Roads
- Buses/Taxis
- Crime/Off-limits areas
- Tourist Assistance
It’s an impressive and extremely practical compilation. If “Know Before You Go” is your motto, these reports are for you. To help fulfill its not-for-profit mission, ASIRT asks for donations to entitle you to download the reports. There are four different levels of participation starting at $30. A $150 donation enables you to download up to ten countries.
Joining ASIRT, Johns Hopkins and the World Health Organization in the consortium operating in the ten targeted countries are the World Bank, Global Road Safety Partnership and the EMBARQ arm of the World Resources Institute. We will continue to dig into the good work they are doing around the world and report our findings.
Photo by ChezShawna
Road Safety Targeted in Ten Countries Over Five Years
Thursday, January 27th, 2011 by Mike Hartung
What’s on track to become a bigger killer than malaria? Vehicular traffic. Unless trends are reversed, cars and trucks will kill 1.9 million people worldwide annually by 2020. To combat this deadly threat, Bloomberg Philanthropies has funded a five-year initiative in Brazil, Cambodia, China, Egypt, India, Kenya, Mexico, Russia, Turkey and Viet Nam where statistics are increasingly grim. A consortium that includes the World Health Organization, Johns Hopkins University and the Association for Safe International Road Travel (ASIRT) is charged with engaging governments and NGOs to promote more responsible driver behavior, trauma care and data collection in each of these countries. Efforts are just getting underway and will continue through 2014. We’ll dig deeper into this topic by taking a closer look at ASIRT and its activities in one of our next posts.
Photo by black_wall.
Travel Bulletin Guatemala: Deadly Public Bus Bombings Persist
Tuesday, January 4th, 2011 by Mike HartungThe New Year has not brought any relief to drivers and riders of Guatemala City’s public buses. At least five people were killed and many more injured yesterday in what was presumed to be another in a long line of bombings by criminal gangs that extort protection payments from bus operators. Altegrity International cites Guatemalan police estimates that in 2010 gangs extorted more than $1.5 million and killed at least 150 bus drivers and their assistants. Observers and travelers to Guatemala have been warning of these risks since 2008.
Trapped in Traffic: China Highway Spawns Mega Jams—No World Record, Yet
Friday, September 3rd, 2010 by Mike Hartung
It’s back. That 60-mile long traffic jam on the road from Beijing to Mongolia, cleared by authorities two weeks ago, has reappeared. Latest reports put it at 75 miles long. The stated cause of the jam is a construction project that isn’t scheduled to be completed until September 17th. I guess it’s a testament to impatience, ignorance and desperation. You would think some of the drivers stuck on the road could have postponed their trip for two more weeks. But planning obviously is not a strong suit for the human species.
It’s not just rapidly developing countries that produce massive traffic jams. It turns out the French hold the Guinness World Record for longest jam: 109 miles stretching from Lyon toward Paris on February 16, 1980, and 18 million Germans were bumper to bumper on April 12, 1990. Clearly, you can run into trouble anywhere.
If you’re planning a road trip overseas, you don’t currently have a lot of resources to help you avoid jams, although web cams are proliferating. It’s only just started carrying international destinations (U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Denmark), but www.trafficland.com has the potential to become the worldwide traffic web cam portal. Do you know of any others?
Photo by Cory M. Grenier
Traveling to India? Be Careful on the Roadways
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 by Moira Bishop
Last summer we analyzed the World Health Organizations (WHO) comprehensive study of road hazards across the world. The report showed that the differences in fatalities in the analyzed countries were a result of road safety laws and the resources necessary to support them. Some countries don’t have the road and traffic patterns necessary to manage the large volume of travelers. The New York Times shows that the road death statistics in India are increasing dramatically while other countries, such as China, are seeing their numbers decline.
Improvements can be made in the form of more strictly enforced safety laws, better roadways, and paths for pedestrians and bikers that will keep them from having to share the already congested roads with careless drivers in unsafe vehicles.
Before you hit the road this summer, find out what to expect on the roads in your host country.
Photo by alex graves
Planning a Road Trip in the U.S.? Check this out first.
Thursday, March 18th, 2010 by Moira Bishop
One of the most basic aspects of safe travel is getting to and from your destination safely, and if you are driving you have more control over this than with other modes of transportation. In the past we’ve covered safe driving in general and identified some areas across the globe with particularly unsafe roads. Recently, Reader’s Digest released the results of a study of U.S. road conditions, ranking each state’s roads as well as identifying both particularly good and bad highways.
Reader’s Digest ranked the general condition of the roads in each state using information from the Federal Highway Administration including safety, congestion, and condition of roads and bridges. The deadliest roads are ranked based on the number of fatalities per 100 million miles driven. If you are planning a road trip in the U.S., check out the lists to see what you can expect. Be careful in Montana which is ranked number one for deadliest roads and deadliest occurrences of DUI.
Finally, you can also check out the 22 bad roads and 9 good ones they identified and route your trips with this knowledge. Perhaps someday GPS devices will be able to give you the safest along with the fastest and shortest routes.
As always, don’t contribute to the problem: Buckle up, don’t drink and drive and keep your eyes on the road and the cars (and other vehicles) around you.
Photo info: http://www.flickr.com/photos/countylemonade/ / CC BY 2.0
Traveling Responsibly Part Two: If You Plan to Drive, Beware of Taking Your Drinking Habits with You
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 by Mike HartungSo you’ve just enjoyed an exotic dinner including a liberal sampling of the local alcoholic libations (some of which are quite potent), and now it’s time to drive home. Be honest, do you have any idea what your blood alcohol level might be? Nearly 90% of the world’s countries have a national drunk-driving law on the books. Of course enforcement varies, but worrying about whether you’ll be stopped and booked is only part of the story. Think of the risk you pose to the local populace and yourself when you get behind the wheel. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that the legal Breath Alcohol Concentration (or BAC) for driving be less than or equal to 0.05 g/dl, and 50% of countries have implemented these rules. In the U.S., the legal limit is 0.08.
Unfortunately, this disparity seems to predict the likelihood of road deaths attributable to alcohol. The WHO’s recent report on road safety around the world places the U.S. among the top twenty countries where you are most likely to die on the road (or cause the death of someone else) if you’ve been drinking.
From this limited data set (not all countries are reporting), we can begin to conclude that American drinking habits generally pose significantly more risk than the locals’ do. Add this American propensity to drink and drive to the need to negotiate unfamiliar or substandard roads as well as signs in foreign languages, and Americans clearly represent a significant threat behind the wheel when far from home, unless they act responsibly.
It may be best to always let someone else drive if you plan to drink at all. In Brazil, the legal limit is just 0.02, and violators are hit with a $600 fine. For many people, just one drink puts you over this limit.
Have you had a drinking and driving incident abroad?
Traveling Responsibly: Part One – Safely sharing the road with riders
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 by Andy Orr
Last week, the Freakonomics blog cited two studies showing that, at least in their specific locales, the overwhelming majority of bicycle and motorcycle crashes on the road are caused by motorists. As a former motorcyclist who was involved in a crash caused by a car, I can personally relate to these studies as can most of the writers who commented on the Freakonomics blog. Of course, there are plenty of bicyclists and motorcyclists that take unnecessary risks and do stupid things on the road, but I am guessing that most riders try very carefully to protect their precious cargo.
As a driver of a car, you can take several steps to try to avoid causing one of these disastrous events:
- most obviously, focus on driving, put away your cell phone, your iPod, your eyeliner or your electric shaver (yes, I have seen both of these practices in action) and realize that your car can become a weapon – one that is much more dangerous to a vulnerable bicyclist or motorcyclist
- look before you leap – always check carefully when switching lanes and be aware of blind spots
- don’t open a car door without making sure that no one is approaching
- give riders plenty of room when following or passing
- be especially careful in intersections looking both ways before crossing or turning even when you have the right of way
- obey all rules of the road and be generous and yield the right of way to riders
It is especially important to be aware of riders and road rules when driving outside of your home country. Many countries have different rider/driver ratios — the more riders, the more careful you need to be. Accidents are also more likely when you are trying to figure out strange road signs or how things work on the “wrong” side of the road.
This is the first post in a new series (three points to the readers who already knew this from the title of the post). If you have ideas on ‘traveling responsibly’, please let us know.
