Forget for a moment the ravages of famine, flood and disease. Traffic accidents have been identified as one of the major human disasters of the late 20th century.
Road accidents kill at least 500,000 people around the world every year--increasingly in developing countries where it is estimated that 70 percent of road fatalities occur on roads crowded with pedestrians, animals, bicycles and increasingly with two- and four-wheeled motor vehicles.
By comparison, 21,751 people died last year in more "conventional" disasters, such as floods, famines and earthquakes.
According to the 1998 World Disasters Report, compiled by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the traffic accident will soon become the third-largest cause of death and disability behind clinical depression and heart disease and ahead of tuberculosis, war and AIDS.
"Few other disasters have quite the close everyday relationship of the car crash with its victims: familiarity truly breeds contempt as the individually rare collision becomes a global tide of road kill with a multi-billion dollar price tag," the report concludes.