Twenty-four people from a single family died yesterday when 
a pick-up truck overturned in Marib province, Yemen.

Traffic accidents in Yemen (population 23m+) cost around 3,000 lives a year, according to official figures. This is probably not far off the death rate in the recent Houthi war – the main difference being that on the roads people are not actually trying to kill each other.

The figure for Saudi Arabia (pop 28m+) is even higher: 6,000 a year. More than a third of the kingdom's road accidents are said to be caused by people driving through red lights.

For comparison, Britain (pop 61m+) had just over 2,500 road deaths in 2008. This was the lowest figure on record and it continued a steady decline in casualties since the 1960s.

Of course, there are a lot of factors to be taken into account when making such comparisons. Yemen's precipitous mountain roads are an obvious one, plus poverty – which results in badly maintained vehicles – and police who take bribes for allowing dangerous drivers and unroadworthy vehicles to continue on their way. 

Also, governments in the Middle East rarely take an interest in public safety unless they are embarrassed into doing so (therecent crackdown on dangerous ships in the Red Sea being a possible exception).

Overlying all that, though, is a general sense of fatalism: that the lives of travellers are in the hands of God rather than humans.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 23 April 2010.