MARRAKECH: A little over 1.8 lakh children and adolescents below the age of 19 years lose their lives on the roads annually across the globe, which comes to around 500 deaths per day, and almost 70% of them occur in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs), a report released by Unicef on Tuesday said.
As per the report, Africa and south-east Asia face the highest burden of child and adolescent road traffic deaths. In India, around 9,500 persons below 18 years died in road crashes in 2023.
The Unicef report released at the 4th ministerial conference said that the African region reports around 46% of all child fatalities as pedestrian-related. By contrast, in the European region, 50% of road deaths in this age group occurs among vehicle occupants.
“Powered two-wheelers are prominent in South Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific, while they are much less so on the African continent and the Caribbean,” it said.
The report highlighted how children and adolescents are more vulnerable on roads in the LMICs as the rate of road traffic death among children and adolescents are up to three times higher in these countries than in high-income nations. “LMICs often lack adequate infrastructural and safety measures, such as road markings, raised intersections, sidewalks and traffic lights, as well as enforced road safety policies, that are needed to protect young road users,” the report said.
The findings of the global status report gains importance considering that there are 3.3 billion children and adolescents aged below 19 years and 90% of them live in LMICs.
Highlighting several policy gaps such as only 37.2% of countries testing all drivers involved in a fatal collision for alcohol and 33.7% have set age and height criteria for child motorcycle passengers, the report has recommended enacting and enforcing legislation requiring a maximum speed limit of 30 kmph on roads around schools and legislation to reduce maximum speeds on all urban roads to a safe level.