Health in Africa: In Taiwan, taking action on road safety made a difference

doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7521.904-b

BMJ 2005;331:904 (15 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7521.904-b

Letter

Health in Africa

In Taiwan, taking action on road safety made a difference

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Ten years ago Taiwan was a developing country likemany in Africa with a high mortality due to road traffic injuries.¹Mortality due to road crashes was stable at 7500 people a yearfrom 1990 to 1995. It dropped from about 7500 in 1995 to 4300in 2003—a 42.7% decrease in nine years. Various reasonsled to this result, the most important factor having been vigorousgovernment policies and campaigns relating to traffic safety.These include:

1994 Enforcement of helmet use in Taipei City
1997 Implementationof helmet law
1998 Implementation of an emergency medicalsystem
1999 Enforcement of regulations on wearing seat beltsand notusing cell phones while driving and strict prohibitionof drinkingand driving
2001 Campaign to use safety seatsfor children.

An active policy taken by the government was essential in improvingroad safety. The efforts of people from many sectors and disciplines,. . . [Full text of this article]

Min-Huei Hsu, consultant neurosurgeon

Taipei Municipal Wanfang Hospital, No 111, Sec 3, Shinglung Road, Taipei City, Taiwan 116 701056@tmu.edu.tw

Yu-Chuan Li, chief, Graduate Institute of Medical Informatics, Wen-Ta Chiu, vice president

Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan