SE Asia's killer roads to claim 385,000 lives in 5 years: Study
SE Asia's killer roads to claim 385,000 lives in 5 years: Study
Agence France-Presse, Manila
An estimated 385,000 people will die and 24 million be injured on Southeast Asian roads over the next five years unless authorities take road safety seriously, an Asian Development Bank (ADB) report said on Monday.
The ADB-sponsored report said the economic cost alone from traffic accidents over the same period could exceed US$88 billion, adding that authorities "grossly underestimate" the scale of the problem.
The findings form part of a joint ADB and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional program which aims to establish a coordinated approach to road safety.
The program is due to be discussed on Tuesday at an ASEAN transport ministers meeting in Phnom Penh. ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
According to ADB estimates some 75,000 people were killed and more than 4.7 million injured or disabled for life in road accidents in Southeast Asian countries last year.
Annual economic losses from road accidents are estimated to be around $15 billion, or 2.2 percent of the region's total gross domestic product.
"Such huge recurring losses are not sustainable and action has to be taken to implement a regional strategy and action plan to improve road safety in the region," according to ADB transport sector specialist Charles Melhuish.
He said road accidents are a growing problem worldwide, resulting in around one million deaths and more than 23 million injuries annually.
Around 85 percent of these deaths occur in developing countries.
The Asia and Pacific region contributes 44 percent of global road deaths, although it has only around 14 percent of the world's motorized vehicle fleet.
"If each of those injured or killed has, say, five family members or dependents reliant upon his or her earnings, there could be 25 million persons in the region being directly affected or suffering economic hardship as a result of road crashes," Melhuish said.
The economic development of the ASEAN countries, in particular, has spurred rapid growth car use which has resulted in a significant worsening of the road safety situation across the region.
Motorcycles, involved in a high proportion of Asia's road accidents, now constitute a large proportion of the vehicle fleet in several countries, ranging from just three percent in Brunei to 80 percent in Laos and 94 percent in Vietnam.
The proportion may be higher in some of the countries due to the non-registration of vehicles.
Official figures of police reported road deaths and injuries are declining in several countries, such as Indonesia and Philippines.
"But official statistics grossly underestimate the actual numbers of persons killed or injured in road accidents," according to Melhuish.
"Erratic reporting of official road casualties is the most likely reason for declining deaths and injuries rather than genuine year on year reduction in the road death toll," he said.
The ADB-backed research, based on statistics such as hospital admissions, sample surveys and international experience, has found that while police-reported road deaths are usually fairly accurate, the number of road related injuries is often significantly underestimated.
Total police reported road deaths in ASEAN in 2003 were 43,259 and 187,343 injured, compared to ADB estimates of 75,193 and 4,745,578, respectively. The biggest discrepancies occurred in Indonesia and Philippines.
Police reported road deaths and injuries in 2003 in Indonesia were 8,761 and 13,941, respectively, compared to ADB estimates of 30,464 and 2.55 million.
In the Philippines, police reports suggest 995 deaths and 6,790 injuries for that year, compared to ADB estimates of about 9,000 and 493,970, respectively.
The percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) lost annually through road accidents ranges from 0.5 percent in Singapore to 3.21 percent in Cambodia, averaging out at 2.23 percent for the region.
Indonesia loses the most in money terms, amounting to $6.03 billion a year or 2.91 percent of annual GDP, followed by Thailand at $3 billion or 2.1 percent of GDP.
The regional plan suggests that the adoption of individual country action plans could lead to a reduction of 42,000 in deaths and 2.9 million injuries in ASEAN over the next five years and $10.6 billion less in terms of economic losses.