Regional Analyses

4.6 Africa

Africa’ s global road fatality share is three times as large(11%) as it’ s motor vehicle share. Crash data was available on only half of African countries but those countries accounted for two-thirds of the regional population. Even less series data was available, especially with motor vehicle data, and it was not possible to identify the recent trend in motorisation save for South Africa. It should be noted that there is, to date, no equivalent in Africa to the regional studies recently undertaken in Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America/Caribbean.

4.6.2 Recent trends
As shown in Figure 17, South Africa’ s experience has been quite different from other countries. The road fatality toll has grown by over a quarter in the other large African countries (Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia) over the past several years. South Africa, on the other hand, experienced a boom in both motorisation and population while road fatalities, since peaking in 1991,appear to have stabilised at approximately 10,000 fatalities per year. The relative personal safety risk doubled for many African countries while it decreased for South Africa (although by comparison it is still very high).

Figure 15 - Africa fatality risk (1996)

Figure 16 - Africa fatality rates (1996)

4.6.3 Road crash casualties

Casualty information was limited to the few countries where published data was found. An earlier study found that single vehicle collisions (including pedestrian crashes) accounted for two thirds of all crashes in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Ghana (Gorell, 1997)

4.6.3.1 Road user type

Consistent with the increased motorisation level, drivers accounted for a much larger share of road fatalities in South Africa and Zimbabwe than in Ethiopia or Zambia. However pedestrians were the most frequently reported road fatality type in all the countries save for Botswana and Malawi where passenger deaths dominated. Kenya and Tanzania also reported cyclist fatality involvement of 9 and 11 percent respectively while motorcyclists represented 2 per cent of road fatalities in both countries (Assum, 1998).

Table 28 - Road fatality distribution by road user type

Source: Dhliweyo (1997), Assum (1998) and TRL internal reports

There is also a clear difference between the pattern of casualties in urban and rural areas. In urban areas of Zambia, pedestrians account for two-thirds of fatalities and over half of all road traffic casualties compared to only 30per cent of fatalities and 12 per cent total casualties in rural areas. Likewise in Ethiopia, pedestrians represented 85 percent of all casualties within Addis Ababa yet only 40 percent nationwide, second to passengers (50 per cent).

4.6.3.2 Gender and age distribution

Road casualty distribution by gender was available for Ethiopia and Zimbabwe while Zambia only records the gender of child casualties. In Ethiopia, females accounted for one out of every four road traffic casualties and the distribution was consistent with all casualty severities. Crash involvement was lower in Zimbabwe where only one out of every six road casualties female. Five per cent of the drivers killed in road crashes in Ethiopia were women.

Children aged under 15 are estimated to represent half of Africa’s population. In relative terms, their crash involvement rate is low overall (See Table 29) but higher for pedestrians. In Zambia, boys were reported to have an involvement rate 50% higher than girls for all casualty severities.

Table 29 Child road casualties (1996-98)

4.7  - Middle East and North Africa

With only 2 per cent of the world’s motor vehicles, 4 percent of the world’s population reside in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region which experiences 6 percent of the global road fatalities. Of the 18 countries assigned to this region, crash data was found for 13 of the countries (88 % regional population)

The analysis below is based on published data and country reports. Bahrain, despite having the fewest number of road fatalities of all countries reporting, is to be credited for producing an annual traffic crash facts booklet which includes much data, summary and even collision diagram sat the country’s worst locations.

4.7.1 Current situation

Key indicators are shown below for all countries with crash data available but it should be noted that the data is almost five years old for several countries, including the two countries with the largest number of road deaths, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Fatality risk in Saudi Arabia is three times that of Egypt but conversely Egypt has a higher fatality rate. See Figures 18 and 19 for fatality risks and rates in order of severity.

Three countries, Israel, Bahrain and Lebanon have much higher motorisation levels than the rest of the region (See Table 30). Despite Israel reporting a GNP per capita almost five times that of Lebanon, the latter has a higher motorisation level. Saudi Arabia has a low motorisation level considering its relatively high per capita income.

4.7.2 Recent trends

From the limited data available, road deaths appear to be a growing problem in the MENA region (See Figure 20). In recent years, road deaths have grown faster than population, 40 per cent faster in Saudi Arabia and more than 60 per cent faster in the countries of Bahrain, Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, and Yemen.

Motor vehicle data was limited and often suspect with Saudi Arabia, for example reporting a motor vehicle fleet almost halving between 1991 and 1993. The other countries reported an increase of 15 per cent in motor vehicles between 1993 and 1996, with Israel and Syria experiencing rises of 22 and 24 per cent respectively.

Figure 18 - Middle East and North Africa fatality risk (1996)

Figure 19  - Middle East and North Africa fatality rates (1996)

Table 30 Key indicators for the MENA region

4.7.3 Road user type

Pedestrian deaths as a percentage of all road fatalities are amongst the world’s highest in this region, with Lebanon reporting the highest pedestrian fatality involvement rate for any country in this study (See Table 31).

Table 31 Pedestrian road fatalities

Pedestrians usually account for a smaller percent of injuries. For all casualties, Bahrain reported that 23 percent were drivers, 37 percent passengers and 20 percent pedestrians. In 1997, Jordan reported 244 pedestrian deaths with a further 5730 pedestrian injuries, for a pedestrian injury to fatality ratio of 23 to 1.

4.7.3.1 Age and gender distribution

Published data on road casualty distribution by gender was only found in two countries. Females accounted for 21 percent of all traffic casualties in Lebanon and 29 per cent in Bahrain. Not surprisingly, males accounted for the highest percentage of driver casualties even in those countries where women were allowed to drive, e.g. 80 per cent in Bahrain. Lebanon reported high fatality involvement of both the young and the elderly; 25 percent of male and 35 percent of female fatalities occurred to those under the age of 24 while38 per cent of male and 30 per cent of female fatalities involved those over the age of 55 (Choueiri, 1995).

Jordan is reported to have a serious child pedestrian casualty problem with two out every three pedestrian casualties under the age of 20 (Elleveset, 1998). Bahrain also reported over half of all pedestrian casualties were under the age of 20. The youngest seem to be most at risk with 38 per cent of all pedestrian casualties occurring to those under 10 years of age.

4.8 Summary

This chapter has attempted to highlight the road safety situation within the various regions. It has shown that fatality rates (i.e. death per 10,000 vehicles) were lowest in HMCs whilst the highest were found in African countries, particularly Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania. Fatality risk (i.e. deaths per 100,000) was highest in a disparate group of countries including Thailand, Malaysia, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia. In most of these analyses, as might be expected, values in Central and Eastern European countries lay closer to the HMCs, than to countries of Africa, Asia or Latin America.

Table 32 Distribution of road fatalities, motor vehicles

and population

The relative regional share of fatalities, population and motor vehicles worldwide is shown in Table 32.

One of the most important differences between HMCs and the LMC regions is that over the last ten years or so the number of deaths taking place actually fell by about 10per cent in HMCs, whilst in the Africa, Asia/Pacific and Latin America regions road deaths continued to rise. In Central and Eastern Europe there was a marked difference between Poland where deaths increased by 31 per cent and other countries where deaths fell.

Over the period 1987-95 deaths in the Asia Pacific region rose by 39 per cent, in Africa by 26 per cent (excluding South Africa) and in the MENA region by over36 per cent. In Africa and Asia there is now some evidence that the rapid increase in road deaths throughout the 1970sand early 1980s is now slowing down but nevertheless the problem still causes concern in these regions.

As might be expected, the majority of people killed in HMCs are car drivers and passengers and about 20 percent are pedestrians. In Asian countries a wide variation was found with, for example, almost 70 per cent of those killed being pedestrians in Hong Kong and about 50 percent in Korea. In China, Malaysia and Thailand, pedestrian deaths were surprisingly low at around 10-15 per cent of the total. Conversely in Singapore, Taiwan (China) and Malaysia over 50 per cent of deaths were motorcyclists.

In African countries, pedestrians were again one of the main classes of road users involved in fatal crashes. Pedestrian deaths also featured strongly in Middle Eastern countries (usually over 30 per cent of all deaths).

An analysis of deaths by gender showed wide variation between countries (even within regions). The overall tendency however was for females to be more involved in non-fatal crashes than in fatal. This probably indicates the fact that females tend to be injured in urban crashes at lower speeds. The overall tendency was for there to be proportionately more females involved in both fatal and non-fatal crashes in the higher income countries. An analysis of casualties and fatalities by age showed that young people are involved in proportionately more crashes in Africa, Asia and the Middle East than in HMCs. In general the data from all regions indicated that crashes involving the economically active in the age group 25-40 dominate.