INSTITUTE OF CERTIFIED ECONOMISTS OF GHANA
5th Mandatory Seminar
Theme: Poverty Reduction in Ghana: The Role of the Economist
Date: 7th December, 2013
Time: 9:00 AM PROMPT
Venue: GNAT Hall, Adabraka, Accra
Sub-Themes:
1. Road Traffic Crashes and Casualties: Economic Implications for Ghana’s Development and Growth.
Paper Presented by: ABRAHAM ZAATO, CE
1 Introduction
As countries develop, death rates usually fall, especially for diseases that affect the young and result in substantial life-years lost. There are usually improvements in healthcare, increases in incomes accompanied by increased access to life enhancing alternatives. Deaths due to road traffic accidents are a notable exception: the growth in motor vehicles that accompanies economic growth usually brings an increase in road traffic accidents most of which result in severe disabilities or fatalities. Indeed, the World Health Organization has predicted that road traffic fatalities will be the sixth leading cause of death worldwide and the second leading cause of disability-adjusted life-years lost in developing countries by the year 2020 (Murray and Lopez 1996).
1.1 The Global Road Traffic Crash Facts
There are at least 1.24 million road deaths and up to 500 million road traffic injuries around the world each year. Young adults aged between 15 and 44 years account for 59% of global roadtraffic deaths.
Ninety Two per cent of these road traffic deaths and injuries occur in low and middle income countries, predominantly affecting vulnerable road users: pedestrians, cyclists and motor cyclists. These countries have only 53% of the world’s registered vehicles.
Road traffic crashes have a devastating emotional impact on the families and communities involved: every death represents the loss of a father, wife, son, daughter, brother or sister. There is an equally devastating economic impact: the sudden violence of a road death often robs a family of its only breadwinner. Road injuries can impose a lifelong cost of caring for severely disabled family members.
But the economic burden of road traffic injuries is felt not just by individual households, but by the economies of developing nations, like Ghana.
Low and middle income countries are disproportionately affected by road crashes. Despite having lower levels of motorization than developed countries, developing countries have generally very poor road safety records. While there has been a downward trend in road fatalities in rich countries over the past decades, developing nations are experiencing dramatic increases in road traffic injuries.
Traffic injuries are estimated to cost low income countries roughly 1% of their Gross National Product (GNP), middle income countries roughly 1.5% of GNP and high income countries roughly 2% of GNP (WHO). However, there are considerable variations by country in the range 1% - 5% of GNP.
The Transport Research Laboratory (TRL, UK) estimates that the direct economic costs of global road crashes amounted to US$ 518 billion. The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) in Brussels estimates that annual costs of road crash injuries in the EU alone exceed €180 billion (US $ 207 billion). In the US the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published a report in 2000 that estimated the human costs of road crashes in America alone at US $230 billion. The TRL’s estimate may be considered conservative, but due to inadequacies in data collection in much of the world and serious underreporting of road traffic injuries in most of the developing world, it is difficult to provide a precise global figure.
The World Bank recently estimated that developing countries lose approximately US$ 100 billion every year due to road crashes. This figure is twice the amount of all development aid provided by donors to developing countries, it said.
Africa bears a huge economic burden from road traffic crashes. Despite the continent accounting for only 4% of the world’s registered vehicle fleet, 10% of global road fatalities occur in the region. Road fatalities are very conservatively estimated to cost Africa approximately US$ 3.7 billion a year, based on an across the board attribution of 1% GNP economic cost.
However, the estimated cost of road crashes as a percentage of GNP in most African countries ranges from about 0.8% in Ethiopia and 1% in South Africa to 2.3% in Zambia and 2.7% in Botswana to almost 5% in Kenya and Malawi. Furthermore, the economic cost of road crashes in Africa is expected to increase by 80% over the next seven years according to projections by the WHO.
This is a financial drain that these countries can ill afford and which inhibits social and economic development.
2 The Case of Ghana
Data from the National Road Safety Commission paints a frightening picture. A picture that should attract national attention.
1. Each day 6 people are killed from their use of the road.
2. More than 2,000 people die annually in Ghana through road traffic crashes.
3. 42% of the fatalities (deaths) are pedestrians
4. 23% of pedestrian deaths involved children below age 16
5. 60% of crashes are caused by speeding
6. 18-55 years age group account for 60% of fatalities
7. 70% of those who die are males
The Table below (Table 2.1) indicates Changes in National Traffic Crash Fatality indices. From the Table, 211,565 Crashes have occurred in the country between 1991 and 2011. Out of these crashes, 288,908 casualties were recorded with 32,007 of the casualties being Fatalities, representing 11.08% of the Casualties. Whereas Ghana’s Fatality Rate is witnessing positive reduction, i.e. from 69.67 in 1991 to the current 17.94 in 2011, absolute fatalities are witnessing an astronomic flight i.e. from 920 deaths in 1991 to 2,199 in 2011. This represents an increase of 139% in the period.
In doing this analysis, I am mindful that, vehicle population has also increased astronomically over the same period i.e. from 132,051vehicles in 1991 to a reported figure of nearly 1.5m vehicles in 2013. This obviously has implications for our economic development and growth efforts.
Table 2:1 - Changes in national Traffic Crash Fatality Indices
2.1 Annual Distribution of Fatalities by Road User Class (RUC)
The distribution of Fatalities by RUC is presented below in Fig.2.1. Pedestrian Fatalities continue to pose a huge challenge to road safety management in Ghana. 43% of the deaths in our country are pedestrians – people who use the road by walking/on foot, followed by 20.7% being bus/mini bus occupants. Whereas this is worrying, the much painful aspect is that, most (23%) of the pedestrian deaths involve children below the age of 16. Immediately you see such figures, your mind begins to ask questions: where are the pedestrian walkways? Where are the seatbelts in vehicles? Where are the traffic wardens on the road? Where are law enforcement agencies? Etc. etc.
Figure 2:1 - Distribution of Fatalities by RUC (1991-2011)
Fellow Economists, you will be particularly interested in knowing which category of vehicles get more involved in Crashes and potentially killing more. The Figure below answers that question.
2.2 Vehicle Type Involved In Crashes
Nearly half of all accidents on our roads involve Cars (i.e. 48%) followed by buses/mini busses (24.5%), Heavy Good Vehicle, HGV(12.4%) etc.
Figure 2:2 - Vehicle Type Involved in Crashes.(1991-2011)
Comparing Figs 2.1 and 2.2, you can immediately conclude that all the various means of transport compete for pedestrian deaths. It appears as though the pedestrian is at the mercy of all these means of transport.
Further, whereas 48% of Cars involved in accidents result into 11.8% fatalities, 4.4% of Motorcycle accidents account for 5.5% fatalities. This implies that, about all motorcycle accidents result in deaths.
2.3 Distribution of Fatalities by Road Environment
Fellow Economists, anytime I hear people say rural-urban migration is only in search for greener pastures and other life enhancing opportunities, I add that, there’s probably a more severe reason they are running away from, i.e. death on the road.
Nearly 70% of the deaths on our roads occur in non-urban centers with only 30% occurring in the urban areas. Do not forget that in my introduction, I mentioned that, the risk of getting killed on the road is slimmer for the affluent that it is for the poor. Most of the poor folks on our country live in non-urban areas. Thus, is not only that those living in rural Ghana are deprived some economic benefits; they are also sentenced to a higher probability of death on the roads.
Figure 2:3 - Distribution of Fatalities by Road Environment (1991-2011)
Again, I’m sure you are wondering, why is this so? Why are our rural folks getting killed on our roads than their urban counterparts? I will attempt to discuss that in a minute.
Not so much is known about the socio-economic dimensions of traffic injury/fatalities. However, the preponderance of evidence suggests that traffic injury is associated with social status. Those who are low in social status sustain traffic injury more often than those who are high in social status.
Social disparities in risk appear to apply to all groups of road users and all levels of injury severity. This means that those groups of the population who are disadvantaged in terms of income, education or quality of their residential areas are also disadvantaged as users of the road transport system by sustaining injury more often than the more advantaged segments of the population. There is thus a significant element of social injustice with respect to traffic injury.
I am certain there are studies that show an opposite pattern – that those who have a high social status are more frequently involved in road accidents than those who have a low social status. Despite these, it is more likely that social disparities in road accident risk put those with a low social status at a disadvantage than that the opposite is the case.
Social disparities in road accident risk can be reduced. Traffic calming in residential areas in particular, has been found to reduce these disparities.
2.4 Distribution of Fatalities by Age Group.
I stumbled on this data some time past and I immediately got frightened about the huge threat this poses to our economic growth and development efforts. As indicated below, Ghana is losing her economically active age group to road traffic crashes. About 60% of the deaths on the road involve people in their prime. Citizens who provide most of the labor the economy needs to develop and grow.
Figure 2:4 - Distribution Of Fatalities by Age Group.
A cursory survey of households in the country may suggest that, most of these people are also bread winners at home. This poses a huge threat to our labor force. The situation is even more compounded if we analyse it from the health and economic burden perspective. The data is an indication that our country will, over time, have two distinct populations; the very young, and the very old. Whereas it would be expected that, the middle aged will assume the family responsibility of caring for their parents until they pass on, the aged may end up spending their pension funds still educating a very young population from whom there is the likelihood that they will not be around to enjoy their investments in them.
At the national level, there is the challenge of huge demands for social services. The very old and very young, who are unable to actively engage in the labor market, may rely on government to extend some social service to them for survival. These include, health services, transport services, etc.
2.5 Distribution of Fatalities by Sex/Gender
Fellow Economists, there is an imbalancealready in the population structure globally and in Ghana, between Males and Females. It is now a known fact that, Females exceed their male counterpart in absolute terms.
Figure 2:5 - Distribution of Fatalities by Sex
From the Figure above, over 70% of the deaths on our roads involve Males whereas only about 30% involve Females. This is very worrying and there are consequences. Again, a cursory study of the road transport sector in Ghana may indicate that, nearly all those who drive vehicles, especially commercial vehicles, are likely breadwinners at home.
Combining the two figures (i.e. Fig. 2.4 and Fig. 2.5) you may conclude that, we are fast losing our breadwinners, mostly males, through road traffic accidents. This implies that, through road traffic accidents poverty is being perpetuated and getting deepened. Similarly, more orphans and widows are churned out each year due to road traffic accidents. In the case where the man dies leaving the woman, she immediately assumes all the economic burden of caring for the family. If she is not empowered to earn a decent income, this may lead to increases in school drop-out rates, street children, armed robbery and other social vices which stem from financial hardship including prostituting.
2.6 The Emergence of ‘OKADA’
Mr. Chairman, there is a new development in our transport sector that is worrying. That is the emergence of the motorcycle as a major means commercial transport in the country, popularly referred to as OKADA. This is the practice where motorcycles are used for hire and reward, i.e. commercially transporting people and goods. First of all, there is no provision in the law permitting the use of motorcycle for commercial purposes. This explains why the Licensing Authority does not issues commercial motorcycle number plates as it is done in the case of vehicles.
Motorcycle fatalities occupied the 6th position in the national fatality chart in 2001. A position which was unacceptable though manageable. Unfortunately, motorcycle fatalities increased from just 16 in 1991 to 44 in 2001 and to 313 in 2011, representing nearly a 2000% increase. Thus, motorcycle fatalities now occupy the 3rd position up from 6th in 2001 and 4th in 2010 (See Table 2.6 below).
Figure 2:6 - Rankings of Fatalities by Road User Type
Similarly, as indicated in Fig. 2.7 below, motorcycle contribution to national fatalities increased from 1.78% in 1991 to 2.69% in 2000 and currently at a rate of 14.23% (i.e. year 2011).
Figure 2:7 - M/Cycle Contribution to Total Fatalities (%)
The particular danger motorcycles pose first to themselves and to their pillions is indicated in Fig. 2.8 below.
Figure 2:8 - Vehicle Type involved in Crashes (2000 – 2008)
From the Figure, annual average increasein Cars’ involvement in accidents is reducing by 79 and that of Bus / Mini Bus is reducing by 3. However, motorcycle involvement in crashes in increasing at an alarming rate of 88.
This calls for stronger actions against the commercialization of motorcycles in our country.