How dangerous is it to drive on the Beautiful Isle?

When I was in LA last week I had occasion to consult the traffic fatality data for Los Angeles County (available on the NHTSA website). Last month, the Taipei Times reported:

As a result of the measure, however, the bureau said that although traffic citations had decreased from an average of 20 million per year before 2005 down to 10 million per year in 2005, deaths caused by traffic accidents had risen from 4,322 in 2002 to 4,735 in 2005.

The death toll was projected to reach to 5,000 last year.

The nation's death rate resulting from traffic incidents is higher than that of the US and Japan, the bureau said.

While about 21 individuals per 100,000 people died in traffic accidents in Taiwan last year, the number was about 15 in the US and seven in Japan.

The US figure is 14.66 per hundred thousand, for Taiwan it is 21, and for LA county? It's a piddling 7.55, or about one-third of the figure in Taiwan. Sadly, the government pledged a decade ago to reduce the death rate to under 9 per hundred thousand....

Naturally, though, things are not that simple. Facts are constructions of methodologies, and each country has its own. How does Taiwan stack up? The problem may be illustrated by this comment in a New Zealand government report from September of last year:

While ascertainment and recording of road traffic deaths is high in countries like New Zealand, there is still country to country variation in completeness of reporting, and some definitions, as outlined in the previous report. These include the time period following the crash in which deaths must occur in order to be counted as traffic deaths. The standard is now 30 days, but it is not universally applied, even in neighbouring countries. A traffic fatality in Spain, Greece and Portugal is one that occurs in the first 24 hours, in France 6 days and in Italy 7 days. Variation also occurs in whether crashes on private roads are included, and whether confirmed suicides or natural deaths are included. There has been considerable improvement in standardisation of these measures in the past decade in IRTAD member countries.

This problem is a common one anytime mortality rates are discussed. For example, the US is often pummeled for having high infant mortality rates, but if you look up the country-by-country definition, in some countries, even advanced ones, it isn't counted as an infant until it has been out of the mother for 24 hours. You can do wonders for your mortality statistics if you don't count the babies who die in the first 24 hours as being born. For traffic fatalities, the US uses the thirty day standard. Taiwan, according to what I have been able to dredge up, uses two different definitions, one by the Dept. of Health, the other from the police (ten year old data) who use a 24 hour standard. Consequently, the DOH reports twice as many fatalities as the police do. Since so many accidents are not reported to the police, some adjustment for undercounting must be made. I cannot find any data on how suicides are accounted for, or whether pedestrians killed on sidewalks in Taiwan by motorcycles are counted.

To expand on some comments I made over in the realm of Roy on a post on driving, when I was in LA, I walked all the way up Santa Monica Blvd, save a section by bus, from Ocean Ave, and cut over to Wilshire and back to UCLA, a couple of hours in all (one of my favorite things to do is to walk all the way across a city taking pictures). Perhaps LA drivers were not on their game that day, but not once did I see a red light run. Not once did I see anyone make an illegal turn on left. Not once did I saw drivers continue to make left turns after the light changed or rush into the intersection in the time both lights were red, or run the red light while the left turn signal was green but the straight signal was red. Nobody ran the length of a line of cars waiting to make a left to line up in front. Nobody was committing traffic infractions in front of a policeman, an event I have video'd and photo'd many times in Taiwan (I did see cops pull cars over twice for infractions). At the entrance ramp for the 405 expressway in front of the Federal Building on Wilshire, though the traffic had backed up onto Wilshire, I saw no cars attempting to run the length of the line of waiting vehicles and push their way in at the exit, which is par for the course in Taiwan -- though I stood there for several minutes watching for just that. Instead, people patiently lined up and waited. The traffic flowed. Tellingly, at rush hour in LA it was not necessary to have the police physically directing traffic at intersections.

I'm sure veteran LA drivers have seen all those things once or twice. But you don't see them day in and day out in LA, like you would in Taiwan.

I was thinking about this as I was waiting to make a left today, and the driver behind me, impatient, attempted to make a blind left turn on the inside of my left. We long-term expats have gotten so used to living in Taiwan that we've become habituated to it, and the differences between Taiwan and a country where the traffic is well regulated and drivers have internalized civic culture are harder for us to see. Laugh though we may, in some ways it's the indignant letter-to-the-editor-writing newbies who might have a better handle on how things stack up between Over Here and Over There.

[Taiwan] [US] [drivers] [traffic] [Los Angeles]