In many poor countries, especially African ones, road accidents are killing more people. Those countries have swelling, young populations, a fast-growing fleet of cars and motorbikes, and few trauma surgeons. It is impossible to know for sure because official statistics are so inaccurate, but deaths are thought to have risen by 40% since 1990 in countries that the World Bank defines as low-income, such as Afghanistan and Malawi. One study, by academics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, found that the number of pedestrian injuries in two districts of Durban fell from 659 in the two years before speed bumps were built to 519 in the two years after.
SOURCE: THE ECONOMIST
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