Before anyone living in Thailand gets too excited….this is the country’s placement in the world for the number of traffic related deaths per 100 000 people. Yes, the only country that loses more residents to road accidents on an annual basis is Namibia. This data is from a recent study called Mortality from Road Crashes in 193 Countries: A Comparison with Other Leading Causes of Death.
“To compile their report, Sivak and Schoettle, who head up the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, pored over fatality statistics published by the World Health Organization in 2008. Though the two were keenly interested in traffic-related deaths, they also took note of fatalities from three other causes: heart disease, malignant neoplasms (shorthand: cancer), and cerebrovascular disease (shorthand: strokes). Then, they mapped that data, calculating the highest and lowest fatality rates associated with each illness, the fatality rates associated with auto accidents, and how the former and latter overlapped.” (http://autos.yahoo.com/news/10-most-dangerous–and-safest–countries-for-driving-200422236.html)
Now, you have to note that there are many ways to statistically report traffic fatalities. If the numbers are crunched according to the number of deaths per 100 000 motor vehicles, then Thailand’s rate decreases drastically compared to other countries in the original list but still remains higher than much of the western world’s. But the fact remains that a hell of a lot of people are killed on the roads every year in this country, no matter how you juggle the numbers.
I know that expats from Australia, Canada, the U.S. and the United Kingdom make up a good chunk of the foreigners in Thailand so I added those countries to the original list, along with their placement. There is always a lot of whining and bitching about the Chinese drivers so I stuck them on the list as well to compare with the rest of us. Looking at the graphs and tables gives you a pretty quick idea on how you rate compared to other countries when it comes to how you are probably going to die!
I find it interesting to note that what some countries gain on low traffic fatalities, they lose on heart disease, cancer and strokes. So maybe those folks that are complaining about all the bad drivers here in Asia should take a look at the other stuff that is going to kill them in their own countries. The UK has the lowest number of traffic fatalities but it more than makes up for it with everything else, passing Australia, Canada, the US, and even China, in the total number of deaths per year. What blew me away were the number of cancer related deaths in that country compared to the rest of the world. Is it really that unhealthy a place?
It has been shown by many countries that it is possible to lower accident rates with good driver training courses, graduated licensing programs and proper law enforcement of road regulations, none of which occur in Thailand. If this country ever decides that it wants to seriously approach this issue, the accident rates would probably plummet. However, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. At least the Thais can be assured that they have a much smaller chance of dying from cancer than most western countries.
We may be better drivers in the western world, and have a more regulated traffic system, but we are sure doing something wrong with the rest of our lifestyles! I. personally, found the results of this study an eye opener. Maybe we should take a look at where we are messed up in our own cultures before we start dissing somebody else’s. It seems that our unhealthy and stressed out lives in the western world are far more life-threatening than driving in Asia!
You can read the full report here.
To increase your odds of survival on Thailand’s roads, read How to Drive in Thailand!
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