Monday, October 12, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
ECONOMY-ARGENTINA: Road Deaths Cost Money
Marcela Valente
- Traffic accidents result in the deaths of nearly 8,000 people in Argentina every year, a statistic that has alarmed not only local authorities but such institutions as the World Bank.
When the number of pedestrians struck by cars is added, Argentina leads the world in traffic fatality statistics.
The figures are alarming: accidents involving motor vehicles are the leading cause of death of Argentineans under the age of 35. And, while in countries like the United States, Holland, Italy and Sweden there are 160-180 fatal accidents per one million vehicles, in Argentina the death rate for every million vehicles is a whopping 1,300 .
According to the non-governmental organisation (NGO) “Luchemos por the Vida” (We’re fighting for life), which is dedicated to road safety education, the economic cost of traffic chaos and the resulting accidents is 10 billion dollars a year.
For its part, the Institute of Highway Safety and Education notes that every fatal accident costs the country 65,000 dollars, a total of 520 million dollars a year. But besides the people who die on the roads, more than 120,000 others are left injured and disabled each year which drives up the costs involved.
The Undersecretary of Highway Safety, Ernesto Tenembaum, told IPS that the World Bank is helping Argentina draw up a pilot awareness programme, designed to lower the number of traffic fatalities by 40 percent.
According to World Bank experts who visited Argentina to participate in drawing up the plan, 20 percent of all public hospital beds in this country are occupied by highway accident victims.
Opinions are varied on the cause of the phenomenon. Government officials and NGOs that work on road safety issues say that stress on drivers and excessive speed on both city streets and highways are only two of the reasons.
There also are a high number of traffic violations and minimal enforcement of road rules. In Buenos Aires, 318 million serious violations are committed monthly but only an averager 26,000 motorists are eventually fined, according to Luchemos por la Vida.
Among the most frequent offenses – and most ignored by the traffic police – is the presence of children in the front seat, failure to wear a seat belt, running red lights and, in the case of motor cyclists, failing to wear a helmet.
In fact, Argentina has the unenviable record in motcyle deaths – eight per month – and nerarly all these involve the lack of an adequate helmet. Motorcycles have become popular with young people in recent years, who use their bikes to work for the growing number of businesses that offer home delivery services.
The bikers ride at high speeds, dodging cars and pedestrians, and accelerate at curves and intersections, often ignoring the traffic lights.
Explaining this behavior, road experts opine that Argentinean drivers in general are more fearless than those in other countries and seek thrills through travelling facst get a kick out of driving fast and breaking the rules.
But some sustain that it is not a “national question,” and to refute this hypothesis, point out that women are more prudent drivers and were involved in fewer accidents. This, they say, indicates respect for the rules.
According to a poll by the Center of Public Opinion Studies, 84 percent of Argentineans believe their compatriots are “fair to bad” drivers.
The safety measures mandated by law are generally not taken seriously by drivers – at least, male drivers.
Seat belts in the majority of cars continue to be little more than “ornaments” for the seats and it is common to see motorcyclists riding with their helmets dangling from the handlebars. In comparison, 90 percent of women wear seat belts.
Similarly, more and more people are using cellular phones while driving. Luchemos por la Vida detected this practice in 2.1 percent of the vehicles in Buenos Aires, which equals 30,000 people per day who are distracted while driving. (FIN/IPS/mv/ag/ks/99)
Print
|
