Car Accidents are increasing… click image to see full size infographic.

In the U.S., our government goes to great lengths to provide public safety announcements and education programs to encourage safer road use and reduce the number of car accident fatalities and injury. The importance of road safety and responsible pedestrian behavior is taught in our schools and almost as soon as our little ones learn to walk, we drum into them to always cross the road at designated pedestrian crossings.

This together with initiatives to reduce distracted driving, laws requiring seat belts and child safety seats and severe penalties for driving under the influence combined to effect a gradual decrease in the number of road fatalities and accidents on US roads. At least this was the case until last year, when the number of traffic deaths leapt up again, causing the National Highway Traffic safety Administration to call to ‘…reinvigorate the fight against deadly behavior on America's roads'.

Car accidents are an abstract concept until they happen to you or someone you know. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of our own officials and governments around the worlds, traffic fatality are still a global crisis which kills almost 1.3 million people a year. Here, in the graphic below, are a few more of the figures which illustrate just how bad this problem still is both here and abroad.