Road safety in Myanmar
Road safety refers to the measures taken to reduce the risk of road traffic injuries and death. It is essential that countries implement measures to make roads safer not only for car occupants, but also for vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists.
Read the article about road safety in Myanmar and fill the ten gaps with the words and phrases below.
Use your knowledge of grammar, articles and sentence construction to match the words and phrases with the ten gaps.
a variety of dramatic increase as well as compared to
the number of More specifically highlights available data
has been estimated more than doubled
Over recent years, there has been a (1)_________ in the number of road fatalities and injuries in Myanmar. In 2016, there were 4,688 police-reported road fatalities, which was more than double the 1,853 figure reported in 2008. Similarly, the number of reported road injuries had (2)_________ from 12,626 in 2008 to 26,375 in 2016.
In terms of population, the number of people killed on Myanmar roads in 2014 represented 8.4 per 100,000 head of population. By international standards, this fatality rate is not particularly high – especially when (3)_________ many other countries in the immediate region (e.g. Thailand – 36.2, Cambodia - 17.7, Indonesia – 17.6). However, many road crashes, and the resulting fatalities and injuries, are not officially reported in Myanmar due to (4)________ reasons.
A key factor underpinning the rise in road fatalities and injuries in Myanmar is the rapid increase in motorization being experienced by the country. For example, between 2008 and 2014, (5)__________ officially recorded vehicles on Myanmar’s roads more than doubled from 2 to 4.6 million (ADB, 2016). If the vehicle fleet continues to expand at this rate, it (6)________ that the number of road fatalities could triple by 2025. Over and above this, there were a large number of unregistered vehicles on Myanmar roads.
As is the general case in the ASEAN Region, the riders and passengers of motorized two- and three-wheeled vehicles, bicycle riders and pedestrians represent almost 60% of the road users killed on Myanmar roads (WHO,2015). While this partly reflects the popularity of these modes of transport, it also (7)_________ the vulnerability of these particular road users to injury due to their unprotected nature.
The (8)__________ suggests that the annual costs of road crashes to the Myanmar economy is approximately $800 million, representing 1.5% of the Gross Domestic Product. These costs highlight the major economic benefits that can be derived from reducing road crashes. (9)___________, it has been estimated that around one-third of the injured patients admitted to hospitals in Myanmar were from road crashes. This highlights the ongoing drain that road crashes have on the countries health system, which will be further exacerbated if road crashes continue to climb. These costs highlight that Myanmar’s funding of road safety is a sound economic investment which can deliver economic savings, (10)_________ addressing a humanitarian problem.
From Wegman F., Watson B., Wong S.V., Job S., Segui-Gomez M. (2017). Road Safety in Myanmar. Recommendations of an Expert Mission invited by the Government of Myanmar and supported by the Suu Foundation. Paris, FIA.
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