While I do tend to talk mostly about car crashes in the USA hopefully you know that road crashes are actually a global epidemic.
Over one million people every year are killed in road crashes, and 20-50 million are injured.
OVER ONE MILLION.
The real barrier to reducing road traffic injuries is fatalism — accepting road traffic injuries as inevitable, as the necessary cost of development, keeps us from addressing this devastating epidemic.
For every RTI death, there are four cases of severe, permanent disabilities, typically to the brain, spinal cord or lower limb joints; 10 cases requiring hospital admission and 30 requiring treatment in an ER. In the European Union alone, 150 000 people are left permanently disabled by RTIs each year.(6)Crash victims are often working-age adults, whose families are left without a primary source of financial support. A study in Bangladesh found that 70% of families experienced a decline in household income and food consumption after a road death.(7) Victims and their family members frequently experience depression, travel-related anxiety and sleep disturbance for years after a crash.
The direct global cost of road traffic crashes is over $500 billion (US) annually, while the cost to developing nations is estimated at $65 billion (US), almost double the total amount of development assistance sent to such nations every year.(2) Indirect costs to victims, families and governments — such as potential income and societal contributions lost — are not included in these calculations. The average impact of crash costs on low- and middle-income countries has been estimated at 1-1.5% of GDP.(2) Road traffic injuries are a global epidemic and the situation is only getting worse.
Zenani Mandela, Nelson Mandela's granddaughter has done a great job campaigning for safer roads after her daughter was struck done and killed by a driver.
Her work is fantastic but this epidemic is still not on the radar.
Car crashes are an epidemic we share with much poorer countries then us.
Though we have far more resources, money and at times education we choose to continue to drive poorly and kill ourselves.