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Abstract
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The fifth Global Status report on Road Safety was released by WHO in December 2023. The number of road traffic deaths were reported to have fallen slightly to 1.19 million per year. However, the important trends observed in the previous report continued. For example, RTIs continue to be the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5-29 years, 92% of the world's fatalities on the roads occur in low- and middle-income countries, and more than half of all road traffic deaths are among vulnerable road users, including pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.
Ten countries, mostly from the European region met the target of reducing fatalities by 50%, however, 66 countries reported increase in fatalities. Most of these countries were from the African and the South East Asian regions where the traffic patterns are dominated by pedestrians, motorised two wheelers and informal transport modes. This highlights the importance of research and generation of new knowledge to address the known risks and new emerging risks observed in the African and theSouth East Asian regions.
This issue presents research articles from Asian and African countries covering a wide range of themes from traffic injuries, work related injuries, media coverage of motor vehicle crashes and those willing to pay for risk reduction. Traffic related articles continue to focus on pedestrians and motorised two wheeler riders.
Guopeng Zhang, et al, from China report the traffic safety performance of left-turn waiting areas (LWA) at signalized intersections. While much has been written about the functioning and design of LWAs, there is a paucity of evidence-based data on their safety aspects; particularly the multi-lane LWA and its unobserved heterogeneity. The present study uses the traffic conflict technique at signalized intersections to develop counter measures to increase safety. The authors conclude that installing LWAs in traffic intersection designs does not make traffic conflicts more severe.
Daiquan Xiao, et al, from China have presented the safety issues involved in the urban-rural fringe with its fragile infrastructure, weak traffic management and mixed traffic flows using a grouped random parameters approach with seemingly unrelated bivariate probit approach. This is something of a pioneering effort in exploring the interaction of safety analysis between the urban and urban-rural fringe areas in their injury severity levels and the heterogeneity attributed to unobserved factors.
O. Olaseni, et al, from South Africa and Mexico have jointly sent in a presentation on intimate partner violence among couples with mixed-romantic orientations. The 2014 same sex marriage prohibition bill in Nigeria has the potential of infringing the fundamental rights of its citizens; this leads to emotional suppression which in turn makes for psychological disorders in a culture where only the 'straights' are seen as 'normal'. In conclusion the authors suggest that governments should rescind anti-homosexuality laws and be sensitized to the need for psychological assessments and insightful counselling. ...
Language: en |