Highway - Road Traffic Safety

Road Traffic Safety

Road traffic safety aims to reduce the harm (deaths, injuries, and property damage) on the highway system from traffic collisions and includes the design, construction and regulation of the roads, the vehicles that use them and also the training of drivers and other road-users. Improvement of road safety needs to be balanced with the provision of an effective efficient transport system. A report published by the World Health Organization in 2004 estimated that some 1.2m people were killed and 50m injured on the roads around the world each year and was the leading cause of death among children 10 – 19 years of age. The report also noted that the problem was most severe in developing countries and that simple prevention measures could halve the number of deaths. For reasons of clear data collection, only harm involving a road vehicle is included. A person tripping with fatal consequences or dying for some unrelated reason on a public road is not included in the relevant statistics.