Skip to main content

Crashes kill and injure too many Latin Americans

Latin America’s high rate of road traffic deaths is giving major cause for concern. Data collated by the International Automobile Federation for nine of Latin America’s nations reveal an average of 16 deaths/100,000 inhabitants caused by road crashes. The information was collated for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay, revealing that there were 61,926 deaths from road crashes in the countries in 2013. Brazil’s fatal crash rate is particularly high with some 40
July 25, 2014 Read time: 2 mins

Latin America’s high rate of road traffic deaths is giving major cause for concern. Data collated by the International Automobile Federation for nine of Latin America’s nations reveal an average of 16 deaths/100,000 inhabitants caused by road crashes. The information was collated for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay, revealing that there were 61,926 deaths from road crashes in the countries in 2013. Brazil’s fatal crash rate is particularly high with some 40,160 people being killed in road crashes, a rate of 20/100,000 inhabitants. Ecuador and Paraguay also have high fatal crash rates of 17/100,000 inhabitants, some 2,570 and 1,117 deaths respectively. Uruguay saw 16/100,000 inhabitants killed in crashes, with 567 fatalities. Argentina, Colombia and Peru had 13/100,000 inhabitants killed in crashes with fatality rates of 5,187, 6,000 and 4,037 respectively. The data showed Chile’s roads to be the safest of the Latin American countries studied, with 9/100,000 inhabitants killed in crashes and a total of 1,623 fatalities in 2013.

Related Content

  • Europe’s road safety is not improving as previously
    April 3, 2012
    The latest official figures on road safety in Europe are giving cause for concern, with data showing casualty reduction has slowed. EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas recently announced a disappointing progress on casualty reduction on Europe's roads. The joint European police association, TISPOL, has added that it is also concerned that improvements in cutting fatalities on Europe’s roads significantly slowed in 2011.
  • TISPOL: drink driving continues to be a pan-European concern
    January 18, 2016
    Drink-drive enforcement still has issues in Europe, according to pan-European police body TISPOL Drink-driving is the cause of around 5,000 road deaths in Europe. In the UK alone, it is estimated that 230 (14%) of the country’s 1,713 road deaths are due to drinking and driving. For England, Wales and Northern Ireland the limit for driving is still 80mg (0.8) of alcohol/100ml of blood. Scotland reduced its limit to 50mg (0.5) of alcohol/100ml of blood in December 2014, bringing it into line with most
  • Concern over the state of US bridges
    April 1, 2019
    Bridge condition is a serious concern in the US, according to a new report from American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA).
  • UAE highlights crashes with heavy vehicles
    May 13, 2014
    The authorities in the UAE have released data showing that over the past 15 years, at least 224 people were killed in crashes involving mini-vans, buses and trucks on the country’s roads. For the most part the fatalities involved workers going to, or coming back from, work and on stretches of major highways with speed limits of 100km/h. The deaths averaged 14/year. Records show the crashes were due to largely to reckless driving by the drivers of the heavy vehicles.