Table 3:
Matrix of events-discourse correlation. Abbreviations: HIC – high-income country; MIC – middle-income country; LIC – low-income country; NMT – non-motorised traffic.
| Period | Transport development: events | RTIs: events | Publications | RTIs: discourse: prioritised factors (Table 5) | Transport development: discourse |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1900–45 | Motorised vehicles spread mostly in USA; highway building programmes in USA (1916) and Germany and Italy (1930s) | RTI mortality in USA rise from 7/100 000 (1910s) to over 29/100 000 (1930s); GB: rise to 18/100 000 (1939); collisions mostly involve only one motorised vehicle | People’s behaviour | Road turns from space for
pedestrians to space for cars; modernisation in high-income countries  motorisation |
|
| 1945–70 | Motorised vehicles spread in Europe | More people die of RTIs than of major epidemic diseases in HICs; most collisions involve several motorised vehicles in HICs | 1962 WHO: Road Traffic Accidents | People’s behaviour; Organisation | RTIs  serious public health concern but also a necessary
price for modernisation |
| Ralph Nader: Unsafe at any Speed (1962) | Vehicles | RTIs result from safety-neglecting (underdeveloped) car designs (blame: manufacturers) | |||
| 1968: William Haddon Jr, ‘The Changing Approach to the Epidemiology’ | People’s behaviour; vehicles; roads | systemic approach to crashes | |||
| 1970–98 | Urbanisation in LICs and MICs; large-scale investment in road building | Measures to reduce motorised traffic in HIC cities; decline of RTI deaths in HICs, dramatic increase of RTI deaths in MICs and on global scale, involving predominantly one motorised vehicle and other traffic participants | Organisation | Doubts about growth-oriented economic system in HICs (1970s), rise of neoliberalism (1980s); debate about ‘sustainable development’; excessive car traffic is considered a burden on urban life in HICs | |
| 1994 World Bank World Development Report | Organisation | Cost-effective transport is essential for development; RTIs are a secondary concern | |||
| 1996: World Bank/WHO: Global Burden of Disease Project | Medical care | RTIs  major burden on global health and development,
especially in MICs |
|||
| 1998: Red Cross: World Disaster Report/Global Road Safety Partnership | People’s behaviour | ||||
| 1999–today | 2003: World Bank: ‘Traffic Fatalities and Economic Growth’ | Economic growth is essential to reduce RTI rate (Kuznets curve) | |||
| 2004: WHO/World Bank: World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention | Institution; people’s behaviour; non-motorised transport; system | Development should serve (transport) health, not vice versa. | |||
| 2006: Commission for Global Road Safety: Make Roads Safe | Roads | Good roads are essential to development and to RTI reduction | |||
| 2007 World Bank: Global Status Report on Road Safety | Organisation; non-motorised transport | ||||