The Country With The Worst Motorcycle Death Rate In The World

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Credit: leo/unspalsh

The white-tiled floor of Togo’s largest trauma unit is awash with the blood of motorcycle riders.

The patients’ limbs are fractured, their scalps gashed and feet grotesquely twisted. Every day is the same – a relentless production line of injury which the hospital must triage.

Due to a shortage of beds, paramedics place the latest victims of motorcycle carnage on plastic sheets on the ground. Power cuts are frequent – but there is no panic; the doctors stitching up a motorbike-taxi passenger continue resourcefully by torchlight, like battlefield medics.

In this chaotic emergency ward, they know all too well that every motorcycle journey on the death-trap streets of the capital Lomé is a roll of the dice.

“On the worst days we have 40 admissions from motorcycle accidents,” says Dr Ariste Dantio, a medic at Sylvanus Olympio Hospital. “But we never have fewer than 20. There is never any pause.

“The situation has never been as bad as it is right now. When I first came here four years ago, I was extremely shocked, but you get used to it. We have amputations regularly. There are deaths too, usually when the thorax has been punctured.”

With motorcycle ownership in sub-Saharan Africa increasing from less than five million in 2010 to an estimated 27 million in 2022, the rate of death and injury from road crashes has similarly surged.

The World Health Organization states that road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death among 15 to 29-year-olds in the region – far outweighing diseases, hunger, conflict and terrorism.

Although the continent has the lowest rate of motorisation, it has the most dangerous roads in the world.

In Togo, 72 per cent of all road deaths are due to motorcycles, accounting for 681 lost lives in 2021. Latest data suggests there were 189 motorcycle deaths in December alone, a horrifying statistical high in the small West African nation which tops the continent’s motorcycle accident tables.

In Lomé, which has a population of 2 million, 27 per cent of riders have endured a life-changing injury, according to a recent report published by the road safety charities FIA Foundation and Amend.

While the easy availability of low-cost motorcycles from China has provided cheap transport and greater freedom for millions seeking better lives, the risks involved have contributed to a road accident epidemic.

According to analysis from the Global Burden of Disease, more than 85,000 African children are killed or injured on the roads every year, while the average rate of road death across the continent is 26.6 per 100,000 people, compared to less than 2.4 per in the UK.

Africa’s rapid urban expansion is set to further exacerbate the issue, says FIA Foundation chief executive Saul Billingsley, with many cities predicted to double in size between 2010 and 2030.

“As the continent rapidly motorises, African governments and international development agencies must act urgently now to make tackling road deaths a priority,” he says.

“It is often the poorest people that bear the horrifying brunt of these daily tragedies, the casualties of which outnumber war or terrorism but slip past unnoticed and unchallenged by leaders at every level.”

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Source: telegraph