Road safety: challenges and opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean

Martínez, Sebastián; Sánchez, Raúl González; Yáñez-Pagans, Patricia · 2019 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1186/s40503-019-0078-0

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Summary

This paper addresses the critical public health and economic challenge of road safety in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), a region disproportionately affected by traffic fatalities. The authors highlight that while global traffic deaths are projected to rise to 1.8 million annually by 2030, LAC countries experience fatality rates nearly twice those of high-income nations. Despite the existence of potentially cost-effective interventions, there is a significant lack of rigorous, causal evidence regarding the effectiveness of road safety programs within the LAC context. The study aims to review theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence to identify challenges and opportunities for policy experimentation, emphasizing the need for better evaluation methods and data systems. The authors employ a comprehensive literature review methodology, synthesizing theoretical perspectives from psychology, transport economics, and microeconomics alongside empirical data on road safety interventions. The analysis focuses on three core pillars established by the UN Decade of Action: safer roads and mobility, safer vehicles, and safer road users. The paper examines statistical trends in traffic mortality, legislative frameworks, and behavioral theories, such as risk homeostasis and accident proneness, to understand the determinants of traffic accidents. It also reviews existing causal studies in LAC, noting that rigorous evaluations are rare, with only a few exceptions like studies on drinking laws in Chile and motorcycle laws in Uruguay. Key findings reveal that traffic injuries impose substantial economic burdens, costing low- and middle-income countries up to 5% of their GDP. In LAC, approximately 124,035 traffic deaths occurred in 2013, with significant variation across sub-regions and user types; for instance, motorcyclists and pedestrians account for nearly half of global road deaths, with high proportions in countries like Colombia and the Dominican Republic. The review identifies uneven implementation of safety standards: while all LAC countries have drunk driving laws, definitions based on blood alcohol content vary, and seatbelt usage rates fluctuate widely, from 39% in the Andean South to 85% in the Latin Caribbean. Furthermore, vehicle safety standards and national road safety strategies are inconsistently adopted across the region. The significance of this work lies in its call for a robust research agenda to generate context-specific evidence for LAC. The authors conclude that current evaluation methods often fail to isolate causal impacts due to confounding factors, necessitating more careful counterfactual definitions. They argue that improving information systems and conducting prospective evaluations of new interventions are imperative. By integrating theoretical insights on driver behavior and system design with empirical gaps, the paper provides a roadmap for designing cost-effective, evidence-based policies to reduce the disproportionate burden of road traffic injuries in developing economies.

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Topics

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• comparative international
• demographic disparities
• fatality injury trends

Information type

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• Empirical Findings: crash risk outcomes