This article presents some results from an accident study conducted by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL); it uses extracts from TRL Report 445. The study's objectives were to: (1) derive estimates of road fatalities for 1999 worldwide and on a continental basis; (2) derive forecasts of the likely numbers of fatalities in 2010 and 2020; and (3) provide an estimate of road accident costs worldwide in relation to Gross National Product (GNP); (4) obtain regional analyses of fatality trends, rates and risk (deaths per 10,000 vehicles and per 100,000 population, respectively); and (5) casualty trends by age, sex, and road user type. Two earlier studies in 1996 and 1999, by the World Health Organisation (WHO), found that, in 1990, road crashes were the ninth most important cause of death or disability, and estimated that, by 2000, they would have become the sixth most important cause. The TRL study was based on official reported fatalities from police databases, but it had to adjust these figures to allow for countries without road fatality statistics, updating figures to 1999, and under-reporting of road accidents. It estimates that there were 750,000 to 880,000 road fatalities in the world, of which 85% were in developing and transitional nations. The article includes graphs of road fatality trends and a table of accident costs for the whole world and in different continents.
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