‘Road carnage’ is a loaded term, ‘carnage’ usually referring to extensive slaughter especially of human beings in battle.  Using this term in reference to the accumulated fatalities and injuries from road crashes, therefore, begs qualification by the numbers.  When we talk about ‘road carnage’ what do we really mean?  Do we know with any degree of accuracy how many people have been killed or injured in road crashes in the 20^th Century?

In 1962, the World Health Organization [WHO], the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system, based on returns for ‘motor vehicle accidents’ from the 47 member states in 1957, reported well over 100,000 fatalities in the world annually from ‘road traffic accidents’ and that the number was increasing.  At this time it said, “The situation arises from man’s own activities and amounts to the casualties of a moderate-scale war—every year.”  (Road Traffic Accidents, WHO, 1962, p13)

This 1962 report went on to say that “Loss of life from road traffic accidents has increased to such an extent that in highly developed countries such accidental deaths exceed the combined deaths from all infectious and communicable diseases: in the United States in 1957, deaths at all ages from all infectious and communicable diseases were 24,256; those from road traffic accidents were 38,702 (WHO, 1960)”.

In 2004, the World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention jointly produced by the WHO and the World Bank— the first such report of its kind—estimated that some 1.2 million people were killed and 50 million injured in traffic collisions on the roads around the world each year and was the leading cause of death among children 10 – 19 years of age.  These numbers, based on statistics compiled for the year 2002, are broken down by sex, age group, WHO region and income level.

In addition, in the 2004 report, road traffic injury-related deaths are included in rankings for the 12 leading causes of death and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).  This document was described as “the outcome of a collaborative effort by institutions and individuals.  Over 100 experts, from all continents and different sectors including transport, engineering, health, police, education and civil society …”

According to some statisticians, there is a ratio of 120 injuries for every one fatality.  If the global number is one million people killed in crashes each year, then the global number of injuries is 120 million each year.

The World Health Organization calls traffic fatalities and injury a global epidemic, and one of, if not the greatest, worldwide public health problem.  The WHO website notes that “Projections indicate that these figures will increase by about 65% over the next 20 years unless there is new commitment to prevention.  Nevertheless, the tragedy behind these figures attracts less mass media attention than other, less frequent types of tragedy.”  It notes that unsafe road traffic systems are seriously harming global public health and development and as contending “that the level of road traffic injury is unacceptable and that it is largely avoidable.”