Citation

Stander H, Bester C. Proc. Road Saf. Four Continents Conf. 2005; 13: 12p.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Conference Sponsor)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

South Africa has a poor road safety record that compares badly with both developed and developing countries. As in most places the single biggest cause of accidents is considered human behavior, followed by the road environment and vehicular deficiencies. A very high percentage of the fatalities in South Africa (approximately 40%) are pedestrians. Many opinions exist on the reasons for the high accident and fatality rates from the road authorities to the general public. It is postulated that the socio-economic situation in South Africa, i.e. the fact that it is a developing country or a peculiar mix of first and third world circumstances, is the underlying cause for the poor road safety record. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the socio-economic causes of the road safety problem and to develop approaches to address the problems. A direct relationship could be shown between the fatality rate per 100 000 vehicles in a number of selected countries (where data are available) and the Human Development Index as defined by the United Nations. Whereas the solutions for this are ongoing training, education, capacity building and general uplifting of the population, it is recommended that a number of operational actions identified here, be implemented whenever affordable, as it should have the best short term results.