Road safety in developing countries.

The Overseas Unit of TRRL has been researching road safety in developing countries since 1972. The early work examined the severity and nature of the problem. More recently, priority has been given to monitoring road accident trends, developing accident investigation systems and evaluating countermeasures. This research, together with other studies, demonstrated the seriousness of the problem in the Third World. For example, it was estimated that 350,000 people were killed every year and that road accidents cost at least 25 billion $ US per year. Analyses of trends indicated that road deaths were increasing in developing countries as a whole, whereas they were generally decreasing elsewhere. Investigations of the nature of the problem demonstrated a few common characteristics for the non-industrialised countries such as the high proportion of fatalities which were pedestrians (up to 51 per cent), and the number of accidents which involved buses and trucks (up to 50 per cent). However, the studies also highlighted the diverse nature of the problem and the need for good accident databases, such as the Microcomputer Accident Analysis Package (MAAP) system developed by the Overseas Unit as an aid to planning and research. Although the Overseas Unit has begun joint studies with developing countries of a range of road safety improvements there is still a general lack of data. Nevertheless, this paper attempts to indicate those countermeasures and approaches which are likely to be most successful and it concludes by recommending an integrated, low-cost approach to road safety action and more collaborative research. (A) For the covering abstract of the conference, see IRRD 840727.