Among the principal conclusions of the statistical yearbook of The National Agency for Road Safety of Argentina in 2018, is that 5,472 people died in a traffic accident. Moreover, this problem has an annual cost of over 175 thousand million pesos for the State administration.

Analysts revealed the data on 10th June, Global Road Safety Day, cited traffic accidents as the primary cause of death among people under the age of 35, and the third for the population as a whole. And deaths in traffic accidents involving people under 35 amount to 45% of the total of victims.

The figure of 5,472 deaths in 2018 due to a traffic accident is stated within a context of the temporary framework of monitoring of victims for 30 days after the accident, in accordance with global harmonisation criteria established by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Accordingly, it is known that 71.5% of deaths – 3,914 – took place at the scene of the accident or within 24 hours of the accident.

Apart from deaths in accidents, 64,816 injured casualties were recorded – 7,446 of these being serious – in a total of 81,592 accidents taking place in 2018.

However harsh such data may appear, there are analysts like Carlos Pérez of the ANSV that consider the accident numbers are steadily going down. In 2017 5,611 died while in 2016 there were 5,582 mortal casualties in traffic accidents. He feels that there is a relative but not very significant downward trend, in which “statistics are levelling out before beginning to fall with a more thorough application of appropriate public policies”.

The mortality rate is experiencing the same trend as that referring to loss of human life in accidents. The statistics that express the relationship between the numbers of deaths for each hundred thousand inhabitants from a same geographic unit continued to be balanced: in 2016 the figure was 12.8%, in 2017 it was 12.7% and in 2018 the downward trend continued to 12.3%.

In parallel, the authorities presented the conclusions of a study that related the economic costs of traffic accidents. In this respect, traffic accidents cost the Argentinian State over 175 thousand million Argentinian pesos annually, 1.7% of the Gross Domestic Product.

These data are the result of the calculation of different costs: the loss of productivity because of the person involved, medical and human costs, the property involved and administrative costs.

Another factor that most worries analysts is that mortalities involving those travelling by motorbike in 2018 amounted to 2,350. This data accounts for 43.8% of the total of victims, whereas in 2017 the figure was 38%.

To address such figures, campaigns are being reinforced to oblige motorcyclists and fellow travellers to wear helmets, as well as campaigns to promote the use of the seatbelt. However, there is a noticeable increase in the use of the seatbelt and deaths in car accidents amounted to 1,479, 27.6% of the total.

It is also noteworthy that 78% of deaths in traffic accidents involved men, in contrast with the 22% affecting women.

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