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You may find this interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_

You may find this interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... Sorting by the second column gives a good picture about which country has more dangerous drivers. And Thailand is #2... so your claim tracks well against this reality.

seshagiric 9y ago
I wouldn't put much into that data - a number of accidents go unreported by involved parties or not published by govt. for various reasons.
- ploek 9y ago
  For fender benders or even total car writeoffs, sure. But for fatalities? From my admittedly narrow and predominantly first-world view that doesn't sound plausible.
  - Symbiote 9y ago
    I saw two fatal accidents in Vietnam in the three weeks I was visiting. This wasn't unusual, other tourists saw similar numbers. I'd guess wealthy drivers simply paid the deceased's family (and the police if necessary), or in other cases the pedestrian or cyclist was blamed entirely and the accident not recorded as a motor vehicle accident.
threeseed 9y ago
Those statistics aren't a reflection of who has the better drivers. If you looked at the page, the road fatalities per 100,000 motor vehicles ranks Thailand somewhere in the middle out of all countries.
- gnarmis 9y ago
  I was considering the first column, which does list Thailand as second highest in terms of road fatalities per 100k inhabitants. By second column, I didn't mean to say skip the column with country names -- that may be the mixup. Here's the source data too: http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_status/2015/TableA2.pdf http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_st.... I think considering the number of road fatalities and accounting for population seems like a good enough comparative measure.
m_mueller 9y ago
Also interesting: The US has about two thirds the amount of fatalities by 100k people compared to India. I.e. the US should first improve its own stats before trying to school anyone else, especially considering that countries like the UK show that it could be improved 4-fold.
- swimfar 9y ago
  Comparing fatalities per 100k people seems like a pretty useless statistic when we're talking about safety standards. If you look at fatalities per 100,000 motor vehicles it's 12.9 compared to 130. So 10x as much. An even better statistic to use would be fatalities per 1 billion vehicle miles. But that data isn't available for India.
  - jdavis703 9y ago
    Non-motorized transportation options aren't counted in vehicle miles. So accidents involving pedastrians, bicycles and other bystanders would skew this some. Since car accidents don't just hurt other motorists it's useful to measure this against the total population.
    - skinnymuch 9y ago
      Is it not useful to look at both the statistic you mention along with the ones you responded to? They may not be equal in importance, but merit some consideration, no?
    - gibberfish 9y ago
      Also, looking at accidents per distance driven hides hides the fact that more time spent on the road is a societal choice that also leads to more fatalities.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- CalRobert 9y ago
  To get a decent idea of what's going on, you need to know VMT per capita, fatalities per vmt, how many crashes are fatal, and ideally quite a few other things (urban/rural mix, etc.). One of the best ways to make roads safer would be to just let people drive less. The US has fairly safe roads per VMT (by world standards), but people end up driving a lot more than in most other places, which negates this somewhat.

seshagiric 9y ago

I wouldn't put much into that data - a number of accidents go unreported by involved parties or not published by govt. for various reasons.

ploek 9y ago
For fender benders or even total car writeoffs, sure. But for fatalities? From my admittedly narrow and predominantly first-world view that doesn't sound plausible.
- Symbiote 9y ago
  I saw two fatal accidents in Vietnam in the three weeks I was visiting. This wasn't unusual, other tourists saw similar numbers. I'd guess wealthy drivers simply paid the deceased's family (and the police if necessary), or in other cases the pedestrian or cyclist was blamed entirely and the accident not recorded as a motor vehicle accident.

threeseed 9y ago

Those statistics aren't a reflection of who has the better drivers. If you looked at the page, the road fatalities per 100,000 motor vehicles ranks Thailand somewhere in the middle out of all countries.

gnarmis 9y ago
I was considering the first column, which does list Thailand as second highest in terms of road fatalities per 100k inhabitants. By second column, I didn't mean to say skip the column with country names -- that may be the mixup. Here's the source data too: http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_status/2015/TableA2.pdf http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_st.... I think considering the number of road fatalities and accounting for population seems like a good enough comparative measure.

m_mueller 9y ago

Also interesting: The US has about two thirds the amount of fatalities by 100k people compared to India. I.e. the US should first improve its own stats before trying to school anyone else, especially considering that countries like the UK show that it could be improved 4-fold.

swimfar 9y ago
Comparing fatalities per 100k people seems like a pretty useless statistic when we're talking about safety standards. If you look at fatalities per 100,000 motor vehicles it's 12.9 compared to 130. So 10x as much. An even better statistic to use would be fatalities per 1 billion vehicle miles. But that data isn't available for India.
- jdavis703 9y ago
  Non-motorized transportation options aren't counted in vehicle miles. So accidents involving pedastrians, bicycles and other bystanders would skew this some. Since car accidents don't just hurt other motorists it's useful to measure this against the total population.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    Is it not useful to look at both the statistic you mention along with the ones you responded to? They may not be equal in importance, but merit some consideration, no?
  - gibberfish 9y ago
    Also, looking at accidents per distance driven hides hides the fact that more time spent on the road is a societal choice that also leads to more fatalities.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
CalRobert 9y ago
To get a decent idea of what's going on, you need to know VMT per capita, fatalities per vmt, how many crashes are fatal, and ideally quite a few other things (urban/rural mix, etc.). One of the best ways to make roads safer would be to just let people drive less. The US has fairly safe roads per VMT (by world standards), but people end up driving a lot more than in most other places, which negates this somewhat.