Traffic Accidents

On New Year’s Day in Hetauda I went for a walk at around 7am ish to try to find a coffee shop to have breakfast in. While I was walking I saw two motorbikes collide. All three people involved walked away from it so it wasn’t as serious as it could have been and I was far enough back that I saw it and heard it but was no more involved than that. A bike on the road I was on was approaching a T junction wanting to turn right, which he did. Another bike (with a rider and passenger) came along the top of the T from the right to the left. The two motorbikes collided. I don’t know whose fault it was, in the UK it would have been the driver turning right as he should have come to a complete stop at the T junction before turning right. In Nepal, I’m not sure. It might have been the other guy for not beeping. In any case, all three people (who were all wearing helmets) ended up off the bikes and on the ground. The bikes ended up in more pieces than is ideal for a motor bike. All three people were standing and walking and talking to each other afterwards and quite a number of other people were around to help. Since I don’t speak Nepali and know nothing about either first aid or motorbikes and there were lots of other people around I continued on my walk.

I often wonder, when I’m in places like this, what the traffic accident rate is. Because road rules, road conditions, driving behaviour, other obstacles (carts, cows, three wheelers, motorbikes, pedestrians, open drains, landslides, etc) do seem to make driving inherently more dangerous than what I’m used to in the UK. And while I did read something a while ago that says that roads without clear markings on them are often safer because people have to slow down and pay attention (as opposed to making everything super clear with thousands of lines and signs and explanations – where people just assume that everything is fine and zone out a bit), I’m not actually sure that holds here. I’m pretty sure the lax road safety here is dangerous and I’m pretty sure traffic is the biggest risk to my life and wellbeing. So I did a bit of research.

Nepal has 16.3 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants (which put is at 82^nd most dangerous country in the world). The global average is 16.7. Zimbabwe is worst with 41.2. Rwanda is 26^th with 29.4. Uganda is 27^th with 29.4. Sri Lanka is 71^st with 19.7. India is 120^th with 11.3. Australia is 167^th with 4.5. The UK is 181^st with 2.9. Micronesia and Monaco are the best with 0.2 and 0 respectively. Now there are a number of factors that are going to make deaths per 100,000 inhabitants a somewhat fraught measure of how risky the traffic is. In the first place it measures deaths rather than injuries. In the second place it is looking at number of inhabitants and doesn’t scale for number of vehicles or number of passenger miles etc. But, given that any metric is going to have limitations, I guess it is not a bad one to be going on with. You can find the information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate if you are interested.

The Global Status Report on Road Safety from the WHO in 2023 (https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4030268?v=pdf) says:

“the number of annual road traffic deaths has fallen slightly to 1.19 million. The report shows that efforts to improve road safety are having an impact, and that significant reductions in road traffic deaths can be made if proven measures are applied. Despite this, the price paid for mobility remains too high. Road traffic injuries remain the leading killer of children and young people aged 5-29 years. More than half of fatalities occur among pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, in particular those living in low and middle-income countries.”

It also says that “the risk of death is three times higher in low-income countries than high-income countries despite these countries having less than 1% of all motor vehicles”.

The report talks about 5 measures that countries can take to reduce the risk of death: reducing speeding; reducing drink driving; ensuring helmets for motorcyclists; ensuring seatbelts in cars; ensuring child restraint. In the case of the accident that I saw, the three people were wearing helmets, I don’t think speed was an issue. It was 7am so I don’t imagine alcohol was a factor either (though I guess it might have been). Nepal does not meet the WHO standards for any of these five measures, Sri Lanka meets the standard for one of these and India meets the standard for two. The UK and Australia both meet the standards for 4 of the 5 measures.

My takeaway from that is that Nepal, Sri Lanka and India are in fact more risky than the UK, and I’m at risk when I’m a pedestrian as well as when I’m a passenger (in a car, three wheeler, bus or motorbike). So, I will continue to assume that traffic is a significant risk to my life and well-being. I will be as cautious and sensible as I can be. I will try not to fall into the trap of thinking that just because many people here behave in a certain way (eg: walking across the road without looking in either direction) that it is safe and that I can do the same.

Basically, roads are dangerous. Becoming less dangerous, but still dangerous.