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Countries with the Most Traffic-Related Deaths

We have a list of countries by total traffic-related deaths. Can you name them?
According to a WHO report via Wikipedia
Rate = Deaths per 100,000 vehicles
Quiz by Quizzer6794
Rate:
Last updated: July 28, 2022
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First submittedFebruary 13, 2016
Times taken41,095
Average score70.0%
Rating4.66
3:00
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Deaths
Rate
Country
261,367
104
China
207,551
130
India
46,935
58
Brazil
39,888
14
United States
38,279
37
Indonesia
35,621
615
Nigeria
27,326
386
Ethiopia
Deaths
Rate
Country
26,529
high
DR Congo
25,781
284
Pakistan
22,491
60
Thailand
22,419
55
Vietnam
21,316
1020
Bangladesh
16,981
50
Russia
16,426
54
Iran
Deaths
Rate
Country
16,211
1073
Tanzania
15,062
43
Mexico
13,273
134
South Africa
12,891
641
Kenya
10,809
251
Myanmar
10,466
149
Egypt
+29
Level 85
Oct 2, 2016
Two hours ago, I had a semi-truck blindly merge into my lane. One hour ago, I had a deer step out into the road in front of me on a dark highway. Grateful to be taking this quiz rather than being part of the statistics!
+1
Level 65
Oct 4, 2016
+62
Level 88
Oct 14, 2016
Stop taking quizzes while you're driving!
+3
Level 53
Oct 14, 2016
hueheue
+6
Level 82
Dec 6, 2017
Survived much worse than that every day in Saudi Arabia. Worst drivers in the world possibly excepting Egypt.
+2
Level 67
Jan 19, 2020
I would also suggest Syria. Arab males have something wrong in their heads about motor vehicles. But from what I learnt on some documentaries and from friends accounts, India is considered the most dangerous place in the world to drive a car.
+6
Level 82
Jan 19, 2020
I've been on the roads in India. Saudi and Egypt were much worse. I've never been to Syria. But... oddly... in Jordan it seemed like people there were driving the opposite of how they drive in Saudi just south of the border: leisurely rolling down the highway at 40 mph sometimes.
+2
Level 72
Jan 30, 2021
You don't have to dodge cows in Syria. On the other hand, IEDs are less of a problem in India than in parts of Syria.
+1
Level 71
Mar 16, 2021
^Can confirm that South Asian countries are pretty bad. Haven't been to India, but the traffic in Bangladesh is an absolute nightmare. People don't care at all about driving safe--it's like a free for all, where whoever goes the fastest and swerves the most (so basically whoever drives the worst) is safest. Rickshaws and mini-taxis everywhere and people walking on the roads just make it worse.

If the DRC's traffic fatality is 6 times worse than Bangladesh, I don't even want to imagine what that's like.

+1
Level 71
Mar 16, 2021
Oh, except looking at it again I've realized that this quiz counts the rate based on number of vehicles. Car ownership is pretty low in Bangladesh (most people, especially in the city, use rickshaws or mini-taxis as I mentioned), so that may be a factor contributing to its high number. When I sort it as a rate per 100,000 inhabitants, Bangladesh actually comes in below the global average and just above the United States.

In contrast, even though Saudi Arabia is not very high on a vehicular basis (I'm guessing due to high rates of car ownership), it's one of the top non-African countries on a population basis.

+10
Level 65
Oct 3, 2016
Side note: The top 20 countries by deaths per 100,000 vehicles are all in Africa!
+1
Level 59
Nov 21, 2022
Bangladesh is NOT in Africa
+5
Level 82
Oct 4, 2016
It's basically just list all the populous developing countries you can think of plus USA.
+1
Level 53
Oct 14, 2016
I think of it on a population basis, focusing on Africa.
+1
Level 63
Jun 29, 2023
I think all of these are in the top 25-30 most populated countries - biggest omissions I could see were major Euro countries and Japan (not a huge surprise, I feel they're known for effective traffic management) - as well as the Philippines, which was a little more surprising to me, but maybe related to its being an island nation
+2
Level 71
Oct 14, 2016
Good quiz, if you like this try my 'The 20 Countries with the Lowest 'Road Vehicle Death Rate'
+16
Level 65
Oct 14, 2016
Another reason not to go to the DR Congo.
+1
Level 76
Jun 30, 2020
Cool, one fewer bigot to deal with.
+22
Level 64
Sep 30, 2020
Is it bigoted to not want to go to a country where there's a good chance you'll be killed in a road traffic collision?
+1
Level 79
Nov 8, 2023
A good chance? The source doesn't even have a number for DRC, I don't know why it's on the quiz and I don't know why the extremely vague "high" classification given by the quiz maker is a half decent reason to be scared you'll die in a traffic accident. Even if there was a number listed, the probability of a tourist dying in an accident is extremely low although higher than a lot of other places.
+11
Level 84
Mar 3, 2022
I personally know a woman from Congo who recently had to flee her home with her 3 young children after her husband was murdered and one of her children had part of her leg hacked off by machete. You couldn't PAY me to go to DR Congo. Am I a bigot too, canadry?
+6
Level 79
Aug 9, 2022
Ah, yes. It's bigotry and nothing else causing sane, intelligent people to not want to travel to DRC. No other reasons at all. lol.
+1
Level 72
Feb 9, 2024
Bigot? Ironic coming from canadry. Anyway, the DRC is a failed state with a high crime rate, there are many reasons to avoid it.
+1
Level 71
Oct 14, 2016
Oh, it's the rate that lists number of deaths per 100 000 vehicles! I was thinking that, woah, there are twice as many traffic accident deaths as there are cars in China and India.
+11
Level 75
Oct 14, 2016
Side note: Notice how Saudi Arabia wasn't on the list? It's because women aren't allowed to drive there.

In case you can't tell, I'm joking!!

+4
Level 65
Oct 15, 2016
Hahahaha
+22
Level 82
Jul 5, 2018
Not joking: driving in Saudi Arabia is an unending nightmare. I remarked so many times in total earnestness if they were going to ban one sex from driving it should have been the other way around.
+3
Level 48
Mar 4, 2019
In my experience, in Saudi, there is on average 1 more lane of cars than lanes on the road. 4 lane highway, 5 lanes of traffic.
+2
Level 82
Jan 19, 2020
yes. And in Egypt I think they try to fit in +3. I was only driving around Cairo for a long weekend and got sideswiped more times than I recall.
+4
Level 72
Oct 16, 2016
Got them all, apart from America lol. I had discounted all the 'western' countries as I assumed road safety, modern cars and the like would mean accidents were lower than in the R.O.W, apparently not.

I know America is a massive Country, in size and population, but that still surprised me.

+10
Level 82
Dec 6, 2017
They've got by far the lowest rate of any country on this list... just high in overall numbers because there are lots of people and lots of cars and Americans like to drive.
+4
Level 79
Oct 14, 2018
That's true, but it's odd company for the US to keep and is still astonishingly high. UK road deaths are about 1800 a year with about a fifth of the population, so that should translate to 9000 for the US.
+8
Level 68
Jan 19, 2020
More than 80% of US adults personally drive most days in a week. My guess is that's able to higher than most other countries. Plus, we take 'road trips', whereas Europe tends to take trains.
+1
Level 22
Oct 27, 2016
Most of them are in africa
+1
Level 89
Nov 20, 2022
More Asian countries now.
+7
Level 74
Dec 3, 2016
Somehow, whenever Tanzania is in a quiz, Kenya is there as well. They seem to be best country buddies.
+1
Level 70
Mar 29, 2017
BFFS
+1
Level 82
Dec 6, 2017
They're right next to each other.
+4
Level 74
Dec 24, 2017
They say Russians are bad drivers, and then there's DRC.
+1
Level 11
Aug 23, 2018
Downvoted because answer to quiz wasn't Chad
+3
Level 80
Mar 16, 2022
Obviously trying Chad for all the quizzes didn’t get them past level 14
+2
Level 71
Oct 4, 2018
Less traffic laws and more like traffic "guidelines"
+1
Level 62
Aug 28, 2019
Don’t forget to wear a helmet!
+5
Level ∞
Oct 25, 2019
+6
Level ∞
Oct 25, 2019
+1
Level 82
Jan 19, 2020
witnessed this and worse firsthand.
+1
Level 57
Jan 19, 2020
Dang, how could I have missed China? Especially the number one answer. Just so obvious.
+1
Level 50
Jan 20, 2020
4 seconds left... lol
+2
Level 78
Jan 20, 2020
A far better stat, but not practically possible, would be fatalities per mile traveled. In most countries of Africa, only a few rich people own cars. Other people, to the extent that they travel by motor vehicles, do so mostly on very dangerous taxis or buses that log many many miles over their lifetimes. So if we can't have that data, we should at least take the numbers in a few places (like DRC and Ethiopia) with a grain of salt. I'm not saying the roads are safe. (I know from personal experience, they aren't.) But oddly, as others have mentioned, Jordanian drivers are an island of sanity. Why is that?
+1
Level 70
Jan 21, 2020
Nobody commenting on how ridiculous it is that the rate for the DRC is 6,400/100,000 (i.e. 6.4%)?
+1
Level 72
Mar 10, 2020
Yes, I noticed that: not all those rate figures are correct. Totals seem to be, as far as one can tell.
+1
Level 51
Feb 8, 2021
Since these are by amount of deaths and not rate you just need to type in the most populous countries, hence they will have the most deaths because of there population.
+6
Level 69
Mar 25, 2021
My two first guesses were CAR and Mad @ gas car. Unfortunately, neither paid off.
+1
Level 75
Aug 8, 2022
I can't help but notice that these numbers correlate strongly with a country's population size, even though they're by 100,000 vehicles. I wonder why that is.
+1
Level 72
Nov 20, 2022
Because the quiz is about total numbers. The rate is given for reference.
+1
Level 65
Nov 20, 2022
Wow, that's incredible. Great quiz. I guess living without a rules-based society, basic infrastructure, and the ability to govern (employ traffic police), really tanks traffic death numbers. Along with medical facilities, and EMT services.

I've got to believe that a tiny percentage of Nigeria, Ethiopia, and DRC, are drivers or own cars. Maybe it's cars killing bicyclists, or rickshaws. Though it seems like if that were the case, it could be easily solved. Guess not.

I don't understand how 6500 people per 100,000 vehicles can be killed in Somalia. Maybe part of it is motorcycles + lawlessness on the roads. And I assume they don't wear helmets.

Oh, maybe it's driving drunk/high as well.

+1
Level 79
Nov 9, 2023
Uh no? Most of these are just the most populous countries in the world, obviously with some exceptions. It's most certainly cars or scooters killings pedestrians or cyclists but I have no idea how that's an easy problem to solve. And I doubt impairment by substances has a significant role, especially compared to a place like the US, where something like a quarter of all traffic fatalities involve alcohol.
+4
Level 67
Nov 20, 2022
Ditto all the comments about driving in the "magic kingdom" of Saudi Arabia. I daresay they are still the worst drivers I've seen, of the 50-odd countries I've visited. I'd give the drivers in Argentina some "credit," too, for being idiotically aggressive. Flipping it around, there's nowhere I've I felt safer than on the roads of Japan. They drive the way I imagine Vulcans would drive, if "Star Trek" were real, and assuming that it was not "amok time."
+2
Level 49
Nov 21, 2022
I wonder how much this has to do with the quality/type of vehicles being driven. What percentage of vehicles in each country have airbags/seatbelts that are up to standard?
+1
Level 79
Nov 9, 2023
The vast majority of these deaths in a lot of these countries probably don't involve cars at all. My guess is that they're low(ish) speed crashes on vehicles like scooters, rickshaws, or bikes.
+1
Level 70
Nov 21, 2022
Having travelled to Egypt & Vietnam, I got both straight away! I noticed that in Cairo and Hanoi, pedestrians cross the road by walking slowly into the oncoming traffic to give the cars a chance to swerve round them. This seemed to be accepted as normal. To someone used to traffic lights and pedestrian crossings, it was terrifying!

I think overcrowding of buses etc and poorly maintained vehicles is also likely a reason. In India we saw a Land Rover on the motorway with three guys standing on the rear bumper, hanging onto the roof. And a whole family on a moped, mom riding side-saddle holding the small child.

+1
Level 82
Nov 21, 2022
So driving in Bangladesh and Tanzania is basically just suicide with extra steps.
+1
Level 68
Nov 23, 2022
This should be under the 'Top 20 Countries' tag.
+1
Level 81
Feb 3, 2023
Interesting quiz. I do wonder on the source of some of the data, though. Having worked in a hospital in Tanzania (for a very limited time), I'm actually surprised that their death rate per 100k people would be only a little over twice that of the US, given how many ER cases were motor vehicle accidents.

But the death rate per 100k vehicles makes me think they might be underestimating the number of vehicles. Are they counting all motorcycles,scooters,dirtbikes, etc? That's where an enormous percentage of their deaths come from...