From the page:
- The global road death toll has already reached 1.24 million per year and is on course to triple to 3.6 million per year by 2030.
- In the developing world, where this pandemic has hit hardest, it will become the fifth leading cause of death, leapfrogging past HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other familiar killers, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) most recent Global Burden of Disease study.
The interactivity of this map was interesting, and I guess one should trust "Pulitzer" writers. However, I found statistics like this just confusing:Australia is the poster boy for reforming bad habits. In the mid-1970s, Aussies were among the world’s most reckless drivers, with a death rate of more than 30 per 100,000 in population. But strict enforcement of safe driving laws resulted in an 80 percent decline in road fatalities over the next six decades.
?? how could there be an 80% decline over the next six decades since the 1970s, if there has only been 3.3 decades so far?
Yeah, but it's the kind of death toll that politicians like. The deaths trickle in isolated, local, regularly. It's been this way for a long time. It is the accepted risk. But the actually ridiculous death toll is what is supposed to usher in the self-driving cars and other driver assistance technologies. I can't help but think this is an area needing a heavy regulatory hand to intervene, but it seems like the technology is pretty close to being there.