Death on the roads of Ukraine
19th March 2008
Ukraine is the most dangerous country in Europe. That is, in terms of road safety and driving culture (or, to be more precise, the lack of both).
In 2007 in Ukraine, there were over 62 000 road accidents with over 9 000 killed and 77 000 injured.
This is 20% increase comparing to 2006.
And this is also almost two people dead from road accidents per 10000 of population, and 16(!) people injured per 10000 of population.
Based on these numbers, every Ukrainian is (on average) at 0.16% risk of being injured and at 0.02% risk of being killed in a road accident.
(An increase in the number of new cars sold in 2007 relative to 2006 was 46.1%: from 371000 sold in 2006, up by 171000 to 542000 new cars sold in 2007.)
On average, road kill accidents take 3-8 times more lives in Ukraine, then in other European countries.
If you visit Ukraine – watch out for reckless, drunken, stupid, blind, ignorant drivers and violating, unpredictable, dummy pedestrians.
The further from the Kyiv’s downtown you are – the more watchful you should be.
This post used the numbers from this press-release (in Ukrainian).
