The Streets Are Responisble for 4% of Deaths in Brazil

Brazilian Newspaper: O Globo Online

[Translation] A combination of being reckless at the steering wheel, abandoned streets, poor infrastructure, and the impunity of motorists, has produced in the last ten years, horrific statistics on Brazilian road ways. From the beginning of 1997 to December of 2006, 327,469 people died in traffic accidents in the country, and the number is much more concentrated in parts of the country that are known as megacities, ie. Rio. Traffic accidents are accounting for 4% of deaths in the country. More simply, out of every 25 people in Brazil that dies, one of those 25 people has lost his/her life in a traffic accident.

Brazilian transit kills as many people as the Iraq war, which has lost about 37 million people, according to the Iraqi ministry.

A comparison with other countries confirms the calamity: in Brazil, for every 1,000 kilometers of road, 106.8 people die. For the same amount of road, 10.1 people die in Italy, 10.5 in Germany and 6.6 in the United States.

{this article was written by Bernardo Mello Franco, Maiá Menezes, Fernanda da Escóssia e Chico Otávio – from O Globo online, and translated by the author of this blog}

Link to original article: http://oglobo.globo.com/pais/mat/2007/10/06/298041188.asp