From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Tue Aug 25 2009 - 09:20:17 EDT
Sure there is aggressive driving in Eritrea and irresponsible
pedestrian behavior to match it, the combination of those two alone is
quite enough to produce road mayhem that results in the loss of lives.
But the WHO study that puts Eritrea at the bottom did so statistically
speaking. In reality Eritrea’s roads may be in fact safer compared to
other countries.
Memhir Ghidewon can give you the lowdown on how satatistical
conclusions are drived but ompare these two facts, Eritrea with 4.5
mil population figure, has 61,000 registered vehicles, it had 86 road
fatalities and 1400 injuries in 2007. Estonia on the other hand has
1.3 mil people with 708,000 registered vehicles; it had 196 fatalities
and 3200 injuries in 2007.
So which country’s roads do you think are safer? In real numbers
Eritrea’s roads have fewer causalities but statistically speaking it
does not fair well at all. Imagine if Eritrea had 700 thousand cars on
its roads?
So to say blanketly that Eritrea’s roads are deadly than others is
misleading. However, its obvious that a lot more work needs to be done
to make Eritrea’s roads safe. Who do you think is ranked high on the
traffic safety bar? Of course those of ‘’high income” countries. You
have money, you have more roads (wide roads). You have money, you have
better traffic enforcement. You have money, you give cash for
clunkers.
Biniam
PS: Here is WHO’s report
http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2009/9789241563840_eng.pdf