 When left is ‘right’! The impact of driving-side practice on road fatalities in AfricaPrashant Poddar and Vijaya Singh Transport Policy, 2021, vol. 114, issue C, 225-232 Abstract: In this paper, we try to understand the impact of a traffic convention, rule of the road, on road fatality rate in Africa. Using the country level panel data on road fatality rates provided by World Health Organization, we try to find whether left side driving rule has any differential causal impact on road fatalities. To address issues related to endogeneity, we instrument ‘Left Side Driving Rule’ with the measure for ‘British Colonization’. Our estimates suggest that the left side driving rule results in lesser road fatalities when compared to the right side driving rule. The illegal usage of ‘Right Hand Drive’ vehicles in right side driving countries and functional superiority of left side driving rule are the potential channels causing this effect. With Africa bearing the highest ‘disease burden’ of traffic fatalities in the world, our research provides a preliminary empirical insight into the role that ‘rule of the road’ traffic convention can play in this regard. Keywords: Driving side; Left hand traffic; Road fatalities; Rule of the road; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:trapol:v:114:y:2021:i:c:p:225-232 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2021.10.004 Access Statistics for this article Transport Policy is currently edited by Y. Hayashi More articles in Transport Policy from Elsevier |
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