FUNDAMENTAL RELATIONSHIP FOR ROADWAY SAFETY: MODEL FOR GLOBAL COMPARISONS

Abstract

A fundamental relationship to explain road accidents in developed and developing countries is proposed. The relationship relies on the interaction of traffic hazard measured as deaths per vehicle, personal hazard as deaths per person, and motorization as vehicles per person. The model is a generalization derived from work by other researchers to explain world accident rates. The model hypothesis is discussed that in the early stages of motorization personal hazard has a small value while the traffic hazard measure will be large. The other extreme is a completely motorized country in which a fairly high but decreasing traffic hazard measure exists and the personal hazard is a low and decreasing value. Between these two extremes, the relationship has a maximum value of population-based deaths as measured by deaths per 100,000 people. The change between the two extremes is due in part to the better engineering of vehicles and roads and greater understanding of the system by the road users. Data from Canada (1910-1940), the United States (1906-1991), and the United Kingdom (1905-1990) are compared with those of India (1961-1985), China (1985), and other countries (1980-1985). These data fit the proposed relationship surprisingly well, and deviations from the U.S. data are fairly easily explained. The model allows the future maximum road fatalities to be forecast for developing countries.