Improving Road Safety
in the OIC Member States
5
Road safety performance in OIC member countries
A comparison has been made of road safety performance, measured in mortality rate (number
of road traffic deaths per population size), in OIC member countries and non-OIC member
countries. Mortality rates are then linked to economic development of the OIC member
countries, measured in income per capita, resulting in the classification of high income country
(HIC), middle income country (MIC) and low income country (LIC).
The OIC member countries show diversity in road safety performance, with mortality rates
ranging from 8.3 (Bahrein) to 32.1 (Iran) per 100,000 inhabitants. Regional differences exist,
with mortality rate averages of the OIC member countries in the African group of 24.5; the Arab
group of 21.2 and the Asian group of 16.1 Mortality rates in the OIC member countries are in
general higher than expected, based on comparison with other countries of similar income
levels). As an indication, the world average mortality rate 18.8 and the global average for MICs
and LICS is 19.5 and 21.5 respectively.
As for road safety performance, the OIC member countries can be stratified into four groups:
1. HICs with much higher road mortality than average for HICs in general;
2. MICs with higher than average road mortality;
3. MICs with lower than average road mortality;
4. LICs with mortality that is high in an absolute sense.
Road safety management in OIC member countries
Literature review indicates that OIC member countries generally are in the early development
stages of the Safe Systems Approach, as advocated by the Global Plan for the Decade of Action.
A number of countries in the Arab and Asian region have taken steps to improve road safety
management to the extent that they are now comparable to many other international countries,
which have adopted and practiced the Safe Systems Approach. However, these countries have
not as yet developed an integrated approach across all pillars (including roads and mobility;
vehicles; road users and post-crash care) sufficiently to be considered as practising the
fundamentals of a Safe Systems Approach.
Countries worth mentioning as seemingly to have advanced most in the direction of a Safe
Systems Approach are the United Arab Emirates and Kazakhstan and to a lesser extent Oman,
Turkey and Malaysia.
Recommended starting point: know where you stand
A country faces road safety challenges based on the specific road safety development phase
which the country is in. Typical policy measures are proposed that are effective in the defined
road safety development phases. Therefore, it is important to know where a country stands in
terms of its road safety development in order to determine the appropriate course of action.
Specific tools have been designed to assist countries in conducting road safety capacity reviews
and prepare follow-up road safety projects. For example, the World Bank has developed the
Road Safety Management Capacity Reviews and Safe System Projects Guidelines. It is highly