Word: safer
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...Asia's motorists are plagued by hazards faced by travelers everywhere: drunk drivers, bad weather, heavy traffic. But developing countries harbor a host of other factors that heighten the peril. With car and motorcycle sales rising fast, deficit-ridden governments are hard-pressed to build wider, safer highways to accommodate swarms of new commuters. In poorer nations, existing road systems are often badly maintained and lack basic infrastructure such as stop signs and traffic signals. Traffic in Asia is frequently a tumultuous and deadly mix of pedestrians, affordable (but highly vulnerable) motorcycles, cars, pickup trucks ferrying loads of passengers...
...world in road fatalities, according to the WHO.) Workers at the center, located in government offices in Bangkok, collate reports of casualties coming in from police, hospitals and rescue workers around the country. The war room is also the staging area for the various programs established to make highways safer, particularly during holiday periods when fatalities spike. The government earlier this year set up extra checkpoints to get drunk drivers off the road, launched public-service ad campaigns urging people to stay sober and drive safely, and even rounded up young road racers and took them on a tour...
...statistics are bound to get uglier. India and China, the most populous countries in the world, have exploding middle classes whose members are reaching for the car keys for the very first time?yet it will be years before those nations are able to fully afford the costs of safer highways. According to a World Bank study last year, if India's current rates of economic growth continue uninterrupted, the country won't hit the critical point at which road death rates begin to improve (per capita income of $8,600) until 2049. Today, one person dies every...
...measures that will make Asia's highways safer are well known. Laid out in a range of studies emanating over the years from the ADB and other multilateral institutions, they include: stricter legislation in critical areas such as speeding and drunk driving; wider use of seat belts and helmets; more money to improve highway infrastructure; improved driver education; improved treatment for accident victims; and greater commitment to providing police with the salaries, equipment and training needed to ensure they will scrupulously enforce the law. The ADB, in particular, conducted a regional road-safety study in 1997 that provided detailed guidelines...
...Bush has picked up some permanent scars. Though the President signed a $500 billion prescription-drug plan for Medicare recipients, the poll shows that only 36% of the electorate trusts him on health care. At a time when Bush insists Americans are safer, just 37% of voters agree with him. Besides, Americans are worried less about terrorism than about the economy, and only 44% of voters approve of Bush's performance in that area...