New Zealand is bucking the trend in road safety with increasing crashes

New Zealand is bucking the trend worldwide on improving road safety with an increase in crashes on its roads. The country saw 5.7 road deaths/100,000 people in 2014 according to the International Road Traffic and Accident Database, an increase of 16.1% from the previous year. This is the largest increase in the 28 countries surveyed, and largely reverses a 17% reduction from the previous year. The death toll on New Zealand’s roads so far in 2015 is 134, compared to 123 and 100 in the comparable periods of 2014 and 2013 respectively. The 1102 International Transport Forum (ITF) noted that per capita crashes in New Zealand have dropped some 45% since the 2000s. Worldwide, 15 of the 28 countries in the survey saw reductions and eight showed an increase; the lowest fatality rate was 2.7/100,000 in Sweden and the highest 12.9/100,000 in Argentina. South Korea meanwhile has the highest road death rate/billion vehicle-kilometres travelled at 17.2, the revealing it to have amongst the worst road safety of any developed nation worldwide. Globally around 1.3 million people were killed in road crashes in 2014, with 90% of the victims in low or middle income countries.