Number of traffic accidents could be a good indicator of a corrupt government

[Deleted]

http://qz.com/666924/bad-drivers-are...pt-government/
http://www.citymetric.com/horizons/s...overnment-2015

"Traffic accidents kill 1.25 million people per year, and it’s well-known that those deaths are disproportionately in low- and middle-income countries. Over at CityMetric, writer James O’Malley has added an interesting wrinkle, by showing a correlation between the number of traffic fatalities in a country and the corruptness of its government.

As an example, he uses Romania, a middle-income country that has recently struggled to root out corruption. However, a better example might be Thailand, which has the highest rate of traffic fatalities in the world and where corruption scuttles international trade deals, or Iran, which has nearly as many deaths and where pressure from sanctions is purported to have spawned billion dollar schemes.

It’s easy to look cynically at a chart like this and think, “spurious correlation.” But O’Malley is far from the first person to make this observation. In fact, academics and government researchers have written numerous papers that attempt to explain the relationship between corruption and traffic accidents. Their conclusions aren’t uniform, but together they present a compelling case that there is a real connection between the two.

The one factor that unarguably connects corruption and driving is income. Rates of motor vehicle deaths have an inverted-U relationship with income. Poor countries have few fatalities. As they become wealthier, fatalities increase until income reaches some critical level, after which fatalities begin to decline again. One study puts that turnaround point between $10,000 and $11,000 per capita (paywall). As a result of this common connection to income, traffic deaths and corruption will always be somewhat correlated.

But that isn’t the whole story. Corruption can vary independently of income. A 2010 study found that the level of corruption in a country can moderate or intensify the effects of income on traffic accidents (paywall). The relationship isn’t linear. A poor country with high corruption is relatively safer for drivers, while a rich country with high corruption has more dangerous roads than it otherwise would.

The authors identify several ways that corruption might influence the risk of accidents, such as by undermining infrastructure development, limiting opportunities for economic advancement, or discouraging legal enforcement. It is the last that O’Malley identifies. There are countries where police are powerless or unwilling to enforce the laws, and as a result drivers tend to ignore them.

Another 2010 study found similar correlations between governance and traffic deaths, and then went on to look at cultural factors as well (paywall). Certain cultural values, such as intellectual autonomy, were seen to reduce traffic fatalities. Others, such as having a hierarchical social structure, made them more common. Good governance was found to be an effective moderator of some of those values that would otherwise increase fatalities. In countries with ineffective governments, negative cultural effects are likely to be more pronounced.

None of these correlations can fully explain the mechanism by which corruption influences traffic fatalities. However, numerous different analyses, using different datasets, support the idea that they are somehow connected.

Bottom line: If you’re in a country where everyone drives on the sidewalk and nobody stops at stop signs, you can be pretty sure the government isn’t working right."

[Spectral]

There are too many other factors that could be plausibly underlying factors to make any conclusions about causality, but yeah, I buy the basic premise. I'd wager that places with terrible traffic tend to be low-trust, low-IQ societies, on average. High-trust, high-IQ societies will tend to have better, less corrupt governments, better infrastructure, better technology, and better behavior. When it comes to national institutions, good things tend to come in bunches.

[Gheld]

Bottom line: If you’re in a country where everyone drives on the sidewalk and nobody stops at stop signs, you can be pretty sure the government isn’t working right."[/I]

I'm pretty sure everybody just assumes that by default. I fail to see how such a study is ever worthy of funding.

[Deleted]

What about North Korea? Anybody?

[Acidbaron]

Rather amusing if you take into account Russia has had people install dashboard cameras in their cars so insurance companies can actually see what happened to stop the fraudulent behavior and people intentionally causing accidents, as in backing up into another car claiming it hit you instead.

[Kasierith]

There are too many other factors that could be plausibly underlying factors to make any conclusions about causality, but yeah, I buy the basic premise. I'd wager that places with terrible traffic tend to be low-trust, low-IQ societies, on average. High-trust, high-IQ societies will tend to have better, less corrupt governments, better infrastructure, better technology, and better behavior. When it comes to national institutions, good things tend to come in bunches.

You'd think that, and yet in my city the number of reported traffic accidents that happen in the northern part of my city (classic suburbia with high income) is much higher than the east side (ghettoish area, very low income low education). It's been linked to transit times and frequency (can afford to drive in and out of the city without having an impact of a daily 30-40 minute commute), means of transit (absolutely enormous difference in how many people take the bus vs taking the car), and congestion (the northern part has basically grown in on itself significantly so that its packed very tightly, whereas the poorer section has mostly stayed along the same lines its been in for 30 years). Though the number of fatal accidents and pedestrian hits are still higher. It's a pretty interesting topic all around, imo.

[Spectral]

You'd think that, and yet in my city the number of reported traffic accidents that happen in the northern part of the city (classic suburbia with high income) is much higher than the east side (ghettoish area, very low income low education). It's been linked to transit times and frequency (can afford to drive in and out of the city without having an impact of a daily 30-40 minute commute), means of transit (absolutely enormous difference in how many people take the bus vs taking the car), and congestion (the northern part has basically grown in on itself significantly so that its packed very tightly, whereas the poorer section has mostly stayed along the same lines its been in for 30 years). Though the number of fatal accidents and pedestrian hits are still higher. It's a pretty interesting topic all around, imo.

Sure. Local traffic trends are likely to swamp society-level effects. I don't know if it holds true, but I recall hearing when I lived in the DC metro area that the area had the highest accident rate of all major metro areas. It's certainly a wildly educated area, but the accidents come through anyway.

I'd still expect there to be some correlation.

[Kasierith]

Sure. Local traffic trends are likely to swamp society-level effects. I don't know if it holds true, but I recall hearing when I lived in the DC metro area that the area had the highest accident rate of all major metro areas. It's certainly a wildly educated area, but the accidents come through anyway.

I'd still expect there to be some correlation.

It appears there is if you could establish a good enough control, but there are many factors that go on, or expand the sample size enough. In a more micro sense, pack enough cars into one area and it doesn't matter how well educated everyone is, there's going to be a bad blind spot and something's going to happen.

[I Push Buttons]

I can't possibly imagine how the third/developing world would have more traffic accidents...

[Ratyrel]

While it's interesting, there are surely better indicators of corruption in a country than this. The amount of accidents has many component causes (prosperity, infrastructure quality, law-enforcement, population density, driving culture and regulations etc., alcoholism, the weather). Corruption should be measured using more controllable parameters imo.

[xenogear3]

High rate of traffic fatalities means people drive cheap poorly built (such as Japanese) cars and motorcycles.

Nothing to do with government.

[I Push Buttons]

High rate of traffic fatalities means people drive cheap poorly built (such as Japanese) cars and motorcycles.

Nothing to do with government.

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/TSP-List

There are like three American company cars on this list...

Like 90% of it is Japanese and 10% of it is German. With like literally four or five other cars between the US and South Korea.