Vox joins the disturbing trend of news outlets that insist on finding disturbing trends everywhere:
Car crashes are killing too many young Africans like Kelvin Kiptum.... His death reflects a broader epidemic of preventable car crash deaths in the Global South — a pattern that has intensified in recent years.... Last year, the World Health Organization reported that traffic fatalities had increased by 17 percent in Africa over the past 10 years.
WHO reported a 17% increase from 2010-2021. During that period Africa's population grew 32%. Per capita traffic deaths decreased by 11%.
It would be great to cut down on traffic deaths in Africa and everywhere else. But come on. Not everything has to be a news hook for some specious trend.
Let’s worry about what happens with in our own borders first please.
Will Taylor Swift be going to the White House with The Chiefs? And how have The Chiefs managed to hang onto that name?
From 1901 till the Braves came to town in 1965, the minor league team in Atlanta was the Atlanta Crackers. For most of that time time there was a Negro team in Atlanta named the Atlanta Black Crackers.
Most of the fans of both teams must have been okay with names. Who is offended by "Chiefs"?
Could be policemen, of course.
Maybe the Chief of Police in San Francisco?
My periodic reminder that Africa is not a country.
If population is up 32% in that time period, my wild-ass guess is that total vehicle-miles are up over 40%.
It seems we ought to be hiring some of those African highway engineers and traffic planners.
You have evidently never actually done any vehicular travel in Lagos (although the idea there has been traffic planning is rather risible).
Hey! I have! Once took me 2+ hours to get from the airport to Ikoyi. And I made it alive!
Any article seriously using the term "Global South", the faddish Brahim Left foolishnesss lumping utterly unlike countries is at its core foolish.
Lumping all of Africa as a mode of analysis together for such a thing is if possible more nonsensical, as if traffic issues in South Africa have any comparable with those of Nigeria or those of Senegal (and even in context of the West Africans, that capital or major city has anything comparable to outside of that). Or lumping with Niger.... Never mind presumably the data includes North Africa, itself complete a different case infrastructure wise.
Utterly incoherent.
Also completely useless as observation (true or not) as rather evidently the traffic conditions that may or may not drive deaths will be not subject to any pan-African intiative nor coherently even addressable (unlike perhaps say perhaps drylands agri, that at least has transversable subject matter application ex national authorities). The traffic policies of Kenya (and a guy veering off into a ditch... says not very much expect perhaps driver error is human) have nothing of particular applicability to different countries (except copying on paper but paper rules and Intello Left maundering rather doesn't change actual application).
Eureka! A perfect vacuum has been achieved right here on Jabberwocking. we are famous!
As I said above, Africa is not a country.
Sort of noteworthy person dies and the media needs to impart some deep metaphysical meaning. Personally I'd go with "It's part of God's plan."
So "God" however defined is the great Murderer of us all? Regardless what folly we commit we will muddle through, perhaps along the way experiencing some miraculous saves from our idiocy, and then at some unexpected moment God throws the switch and it's "Hello, St. Peter"?
Seems pretty metaphysical to me.
Bear in mind that driving age lags population growth by a decade and a bit.
Sure, passengers (and pedestrians), but they make up some percentage of the total deaths -- so you would need to weigh the stats in that direction a bit.
Probably comes out even-ish (unsucks thumb)
you beat me to it. None of those 32% are driving yet, and the amount that aged up to driving age during that time was certainly significantly fewer.
So how much did population rise over the prior twenty years?
This is not difficult.
Vox is doing their level best to put TFG back in the White House
https://www.mattball.org/2024/02/for-you-and-all-of-us-challenge-for.html
Just the fact that the human population in Africa increased 32% in ten years - ten years, not twenty or thirty or a hundred - might be the real story here. There are unavoidable, large scale systemic stressors and shocks coming in the near, medium, and long term future from anthropogenic global warming. What does this mean for a area of the world with an exploding population, limited resource capacity and production, and endemic regional instability? Seriously. Leaving all post-colonialist discourse aside and looking at the material reality of this - what are the implications?
Meh. In 1950 there were 31 countries with birth rates of at least 7.0. Today there are zero. Back then the global birth rate was 5.0. Today it is 2.3 and still falling. As of 2023 fully half of the countries in the world have birth rates below replacement level, including China, India, the USA, Brazil, Mexico, and most of Europe.
So don't zoom in on high birth rates in Africa and say OMG! They will come around soon enough, like every other place has done. If you are younger than 30 then you have a pretty good chance of living to see the global population plateau and begin to fall.
Yes, but will that fall be thanks to birth rates or because we’ve gone too far, too long on population?
The fall will be due to birth rates. Countries with at least a lower-middle-class level of prosperity (by global standards) see lower birth rates. This is probably just because countries at that level of prosperity can afford to give all their kids - including girls - a basic education. A girl with a basic education has options in life, and a girl with options rarely chooses to have a bunch of children.
The most effective birth control known to mankind is letting girls go to school. And girl's education is slowly spreading across Africa.
Everywhere and at all times: If It Bleeds it Leads.
Traffic death rates are (probably) down. Traffic deaths appear to be up.
...but that's probably because births were up ten, twenty years ago...
> population grew 32%
That sounds like a hook for a scary trend.
Incidentally, the world record holder in marathon, Kelvin Kiptum, just died in a car accident near his home in Kenya.