Death by Asphalt

A not-very-helpful New York Times article on the sorry state of traffic safety in India could be summarized in two lines:

"The fast-growing Indian economy has resulted in a steady increase in traffic fatalities.  No one really knows what to do about it !!"

You don't need a 1500 word article to arrive at this conclusion. Pretty much any Indian resident  or even a regular visitor can tell you that. However, one line caught my attention -- newly privatized highways in Brazil have much lower rate of fatal accidents compared to other roads. Wish the reporters had more to say about how Brazil is doing better.

Link to a  bit more substantive article in BBC ( June 2008) on similar topic has a shocking revelation (no sources provided) : Traffic deaths claim more people in India than AIDS, TB and Malaria combined.