Corruption, Automobility Cultures, and Road Traffic Deaths: The Perfect Storm in Rapidly Motorizing Countries?

Peter Wells and Malcolm J Beynon

Environment and Planning A, 2011, vol. 43, issue 10, 2492-2503

Abstract: This paper explores the hitherto neglected combined contribution of automobility cultures and corruption to prevailing death and injury rates from road traffic, with an emphasis on developing countries. Automobility cultures are argued to be crucial to real-world death and injury rates. The paper then argues that indices of public corruption may be taken as a more general proxy for the extent of traffic rule observance and risky behaviours by all classes of road user. Data on relative corruption at the national level are compared with data on road traffic deaths—both reported and adjusted. The latter seek to account for potential underreporting and definitional differences. The paper concludes that policy needs to be sensitized to local cultures, and to extend beyond issues related to the engineering of cars or infrastructures if social attitudes are to be changed, and the rate of deaths and injuries reduced.

Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a4498 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:43:y:2011:i:10:p:2492-2503

DOI: 10.1068/a4498

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning A
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().