safe driving

Safe Driving

Inept drivers are the cause of traffic jams , whether or they actually cause accidents or not . The act of merging into heavy , fast-moving traffic which takes place dozens of times everyday driving requires a high degree of mastery of driving skills . Some would say that such a task seems trivial but statistics in Missouri , USA (Missouri Department of Transportation , 2004 ) alone show that merging into traffic is one of the most accident prone activities in driving . Bad driving causes everything from lethal accidents to traffic jams every day

The

Impacts of Bad Driving

According to Longley (2004 , there are more than one million deaths world wide attributed to traffic accidents . In the United States alone there are 44 ,000 deaths attributed to traffic accidents costing 21 billion in US Dollars which is 20 of all medical costs attributed to injuries . In high income countries such as the United States , road traffic accidents are already leading grounds of disease burden in 1998 as measured in the disability-adjusted life years (DALYs . In less developed countries , road traffic accidents are the most noteworthy cause of injuries , ranking eleventh among the reasons of lost years of healthy life . Figure 1 shows that road traffic accidents would increase in their impact on human life and property

In "The Economic Costs Of Motor Vehicle Crashes " published by the United States Department of Transportation , J . Blincoe reports that

. in 1994 , motor vehicle crashes accounted for 40 ,676 fatalites , and 4 ,100 ,000 injuries (of which 533 ,000 or 13 were serious . The lifetime cost to the US economy for automobile accidents that occured in 1994 was 150 .5 billion

The World Health Organziation 's 1999 publication "Injury : A Leading Cause of the Global Burden of Disease " reports that the leading cause of death among people aged 15-44 years is traffic injuries and df the 5 .8 million people who died of injuries in 1998 alone , ther have been 1 ,170 ,694 fatalities as a direct result of injuries sustained in a motor vehicle and road accidents . The World Health Organization (WHO ) has reported that 38 ,848 ,625 injuries were received by people involved in motor vehicle accidents in 1998 . Figure 2 summarizes the traffic statistics in the WHO report

Similar studies done in the United Kingdom have prompted the government and citizen groups to organize groups and projects focused on making safe its roads . The programs were designed to work at ground level with local government offices and communities groups . In a study done in the city of Durnham in 2003 , some of the key indicators that were focused on were ? Reported casualties in 2003 (1 increase ? Fatalities have increased 2003 ? Slight casualties have increased by 2 in 2003 ? Car passenger casualties have increased by 14 ? Motorcycle casualties have increased by 5 ? Pedal cycle casualties have decreased by 7

These data become even more significant considering the number of registered vehicles in Durnham and the traffic that comes into the local . Local governments must...