According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), an estimated 1.19 million people die in road accidents around the world each year. The United Nations General Assembly has set the target of halving this number by 2030.
Road traffic injuries have become the leading cause of death for people aged between 5 and 29 years old. According to the WHO, more than half of all road traffic deaths are of pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists.
As Statista's Anna Fleck shows in the chart below, road safety (or lack of) is a global issue. But in some places, road deaths are more likely than others, with as many as nine in ten road traffic deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries.
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According to the World Bank this is partly a result of "rising incomes in many developing countries have led to more motor vehicles and greater traffic volumes, but road safety management capacity, road infrastructure and enforcement of traffic safety regulations have not kept pace.”
Of 197 countries and territories analyzed in the WHO database, the West African nation of Guinea had the highest number of deaths per capita in 2021, when the most recent data was analyzed, at 37 per 100,000 inhabitants.
It is followed by Libya (34 deaths per 100,000) and Haiti (31 deaths per 100,000).
Although not fully illustrated here, Africa is the world region with the highest death rates, with 12 out of the top 20 countries listed as the most fatal countries worldwide for road deaths.
The United States comes in rank 79 with approximately 14 people killed from road accidents per 100,000 population in 2021.
