Road accidents kill 1.25 million people each year globally, and it's well-documented that these deaths occur disproportionately in low- and middle-income countries. But an article at City Metric goes one step further, finding a correlation between traffic fatalities and the level of corruption in a country's government.
One example given is middle-income Romania, which has been struggling to root out corruption in the government. But more extreme examples can be seen in Thailand, with the highest rate of deadly traffic accidents in the world, and in Iran, which also has high road fatalities, and under pressure of international sanctions, billionaires like Babak Zanjani, stand accused of corruption and fraud.
Data from the World Justice Project's Rule of Law Index lines up nicely with rates of deadly traffic accidents, and it also correlates to some extent to income level. For example, low-income Afghanistan - racked by insecurity and weak public institutions - has relatively few traffic-related deaths, about 20 per 100,000 people. As income gets slightly higher, traffic deaths increase - 40 per 100,000 in Thailand - but as a country's income and overall rule of law improves, the deaths start to decrease again.
But that's not the whole story, as corruption can affect wealthy countries as well as poorer ones. A poor country with corruption is relatively safe for drivers, but wealthy countries with corrupted governments tend to have far more dangerous roads. High-income countries with notoriously dangerous drivers - looking at you, Saudi Arabia and UAE - might well fit this dataset.
The bottom line is: If you live in a country where people drive and park on sidewalks, disregards stop signs, and behaves like indicator lights are for decoration - the government probably isn't functioning the way it should.
