Car and other motor vehicle accidents caused about 1.3 million of the 55 million worldwide deaths in 2000, according to a report by the World Health Organisation.
Nearly 90 percent of the road deaths occurred in the developing world, with China and India accounting for a huge number of the total.
Nearly 10 percent of deaths each year are from injuries. Motor vehicle crashes of all sorts account for about 25 percent of injury deaths. This is followed by suicide (16 percent), homicide (10 percent), drowning (9 percent), war (6 percent), poisoning (6 percent), falls (6 percent), fires (5 percent) and miscellaneous causes (17 percent).
Three times as many men die on the roads as women, with younger ages predominant. Globally, half of all vehicle deaths happen to people 15 to 44 years old.
Among large countries, India and China have the highest rates of road deaths: 29 deaths per 100,000 people per year in India; 19 per 100,000 in China. In India, nearly 7 million potential years of life are lost each year because of traffic deaths. In China, the estimate is about 5.5 million potential years lost.
Several Gulf states have even higher rates. In North America, the rate is 15 per 100,000.
WHO refers to road traffic accidents as "incidents" because it does not want to suggest the deaths are unavoidable. Improving driving and roadway safety is one of its high priorities.
The Washington Post