The list is included in a report by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), a Paris-based group of 30 countries with market economies. The group surveyed its members, tracking both deaths per million individuals and deaths per million drivers in 2007. For our list of 10 dangerous countries for drivers, we averaged a country's ranking on each data point for a composite result.
In Depth: 10 Dangerous Countries For Drivers
The worst performers are post-Soviet states in Eastern Europe where the political infrastructure is disorganized and weak. In Russia, the most dangerous country for drivers on our list (with 939 deaths per million cars), the government does a lousy job enforcing speed limits and laws against drunk driving across its expansive terrain.
One of the list's surprises: the U.S., which ranks eighth most dangerous, with 163 deaths per million cars in 2007. Though American law enforcement works efficiently compared with a place like Russia, the high American teen drinking rate makes it tough to bring down drunk driving deaths.
Another surprise: No. 10 on our list, Belgium. The western European nation makes a poor showing, says OECD statistician Mario Barreto, because it's so small, with a population of just 10.4 million. Belgium had 168 deaths per million cars and 100 deaths per million inhabitants in 2007 (Compare Belgium's population with Russia's, 140 million, and the U.S., 300 million.)
Belgium could improve if France is any indication. France made the top 10 most dangerous list back in 2002. Since then, it has cut its fatality rate by instituting stricter speed limits and new penalties for drunk driving. Get caught once and you will have your car confiscated; get caught twice and a special ignition test may be attached to your vehicle that monitors your blood alcohol level before letting you start the car. In the last four years, France's auto fatality rate has fallen by 38%, to just 75 per million inhabitants. It's now among the OECD's safest countries for drivers, ranking 11 out of 31.
Members of non-governmental organizations that track traffic safety around the globe caution that the most dangerous countries for drivers are not members of the OECD, and thus not covered by the report. Not surprisingly, developing nations like China, India and South Africa suffer the greatest number of traffic fatalities.
These economies are growing so rapidly that new vehicles appear on the roads too quickly (a 15% annual increase on average) for government to respond with enforced speed limits or traffic police. New superhighways bring culture shock, and added risk, when they are constructed in rural areas where residents might not know any better than to cross in front of a speeding car as though it were a slow-moving rickshaw. Indeed the casualties in these developing nations are probably worse than we think, since governments can be lax about registering drivers, while hospitals keep imperfect records of causes of death.
Meanwhile, in the wealthy nations that make up the OECD, vehicle registrations are mandatory; police, hospital and emergency staffs are trained professionals; and fatality statistics include all those who died up to 30 days after an accident from a related wound. As a result of this more expansive and robust data, says Peter van Meulen of the International Road Safety Academy (IRSA), first world countries often appear to have more fatalities than poor countries, where the true figures are not reported, but "which have much worse records."
IRSA is now working with the World Health Organization to develop a comprehensive worldwide study to fill the gap.
In Depth: 10 Dangerous Countries For Drivers
