Casualty rates reduce as incomes increase

1 November 2013

Earlier this year, the World Health Organization published a comprehensive assessment of road safety in the individual countries of the world (WHO, 2013). 

A new study from the Transportation Research Institute at the University of Michigan uses this WHO data for individual countries, but also focuses on differences based on the level of development. The results indicate that the fatality rate per vehicle decreases as income level increases, while the fatality rate per person is an inverted-U-shaped function of income level.

The percentage of pedestrian fatalities out of all fatalities decreases as income level increases.

Income-level effects were also found for 31 aspects related to institutional framework, safer roads and mobility, safer vehicles, safer road users, and post-crash care.