Democracy, governance, and road safety

Rune Elvik

doi:10.1016/j.aap.2021.106067

Abstract

Countries scoring high on the Democracy Index developed by The Economist Intelligence Unit have fewer traffic fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants than countries scoring low on this index. The statistical relationship between democracy score and fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants is statistically highly significant and robust with respect to control for potentially confounding factors. A similar relationship exists between democracy score and the number of traffic fatalities per 100,000 motor vehicles. The statistical relationship between level of democracy and level of road safety is strong, although the analyses reported in this paper do not justify a causal interpretation of the relationship. Changes over time in government effectiveness (one of the indicators of the World Governance Index developed by the World Bank) are weakly associated with changes in road safety performance.

Highlights

A huge number of factors influence the number of road accidents
If authoritarian political systems fail to bring about eco nomic growth, maybe they fail to improve road safety? The objec tive of this paper is to examine the relationship between democracy, governance and road safety
Model 1 shows that the democracy index is negatively related to the number of fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants

Summary

Introduction

A huge number of factors influence the number of road accidents. Some of these factors exert a similar influence in all countries. The effects of traffic volume on the number of accidents are similar across countries (Høye and Hesjevoll, 2020). Despite the similarity of the effects of these factors, the level of road safety, as indicated by the number of traffic fatalities per 100,000 in habitants, varies greatly between countries. Most traffic fatalities today occur in low- and middle-income countries. These countries have the highest rate of traffic fatalities, both per 100,000 inhabitants and per 100,000 motor vehicles. High-income countries have succeeded in reducing the number of traffic fatalities. The number remains stable or continues to grow in most low- or middle-income countries

Results

Discussion

Conclusion