比恐怖主义更恐怖的事 Our deadliest problem? Not terrorism

If humanity wants some quick wins, a good place to start would be road accidents. Traffic killed 1.24 million people in 2010, says the World Health Organisation. That’s about double the toll of homicides and armed conflict combined. Yet we could save many of these lives quite easily. Our failure to do so is in part a simple failure of imagination.

如果人类想要快速取得一些成就，不妨从道路交通安全着手。根据世界卫生组织(WHO)的统计，2010年交通事故导致了124万人丧生。这大概是谋杀和武装冲突致死人数总和的两倍。然而，我们可以相当轻易地挽救其中许多人的生命。某种程度上，我们之所以没有这样做，只是因为缺乏想象力。

“Road traffic injuries have been neglected from the global health agenda... being predictable and largely preventable,” says the WHO. Car crashes aren’t considered news precisely because they are routine, remarks the Dutch writer Joris Luyendijk. He says that although road accidents are “the biggest bloodbath in the Arab world”, media instead focus on the much smaller bloodbath of terrorism.

“道路交通事故伤害一直受到全球健康议程的忽视……尽管这种伤害是可预测的，而且基本上也是可以预防的，”世卫组织表示。荷兰作家约里斯戠因迪克(Joris Luyendijk)评论称，之所以人们不把车祸视为新闻，正是因为它们太司空见惯了。他说，尽管交通事故是“阿拉伯世界最大规模的屠杀”，媒体却关注规模小得多的恐怖主义屠杀。

Terrorists killed nearly 18,000 people worldwide in 2013, says the Institute for Economics and Peace. That’s 1.5 per cent of the number killed by traffic. Of course, terrorism might one day escalate to apocalyptic proportions, but then pundits have been predicting that since 2001. Meanwhile, with ever more cars sold, roads will soon probably kill more people than either Aids or tuberculosis.

根据经济与和平学会(Institute for Economics and Peace)的说法，2013年恐怖分子在全球范围内杀害了近1.8万人。这只是交通事故死亡人数的1.5%。当然，或许有一天，恐怖主义将升级到毁天灭地的程度，可是专家们自2001年以来就一直在做着这样的预言。另一方面，随着更多人买车，交通事故死亡人数或许很快就会超过艾滋病(Aids)或者结核病(tuberculosis)。

Driving is too banal an activity to arouse much fear. People tend to worry more about flying, whereas the most dangerous part of a plane journey is often the drive to the airport, says Jody Sindelar, health economist at the Yale School of Public Health. Plane crashes killed 1,320 people worldwide last year, yet they dominate TV news. Karl Ove Knausgaard, the “Norwegian Proust”, explains: “A plane crash was a ritual, it happened every so often, the same chain of events, and we were never part of it ourselves. A sense of security, but also excitement and intensity, for imagine how terrible the last seconds were for the passengers...”

驾驶汽车这种行为太过平常，以至于无法引起太多恐惧。人们似乎更担心飞行，然而，耶鲁大学(Yale University)公共卫生学院(School of Public Health)的健康经济学家乔迪鬠德拉尔(Jody Sindelar)表示，乘飞机旅行中最危险的部分往往是开车前往机场的那一段路程。去年，飞机失事在全球范围内共致使1320人丧生，然而这些事故充斥着电视新闻。有“挪威的普鲁斯特”(Norwegian Proust)之称的卡尔攠韦克瑙斯高(Karl Ove Knausgaard)解释称：“飞机失事是一场仪式，它时不时发生，同样的事件连锁，我们自己从来不是其中的一员。想象最后几秒钟对于乘客是多么可怕，让我们获得了一种安全感，同时也带来了刺激和激烈的感觉……”

By contrast, the language we use for the traffic pandemic lacks intensity. The phrase “car crash” has become slang for a social or professional mishap. The word “accident” suggests that a death was unavoidable, a matter of fate. This is wrong. Countries such as Greece and France have shown how fast deaths can be reduced when a government bothers. Sometimes the nanny state works. In 1973, 17,000 people a year died on French roads. Then leaders such as Pierre Messmer and later Jacques Chirac took action. Speed limits were imposed, seat belts made compulsory, radars installed etc. It turns out that some tragedies aren’t inevitable. A generation ago around Europe, motorcycle accidents provided a reliable supply of organ donors. That ended after helmets became compulsory.

相比之下，我们对遍地皆是的交通事故使用的语言就不那么激烈了。“撞车”(car crash)这个词变成了描述社会或者职业失败的俗称。“事故”这个词表明死亡是不可避免的，是一种命运。这是错误的。希腊和法国等国家的做法已经表明，政府的介入可以在多短的时间内降低死亡人数。有时保姆国家的确能够奏效。1973年，法国每年的交通事故死亡人数达到1.7万人。于是皮埃尔蔠斯梅尔(Pierre Messmer)等领导人以及后来的雅克希拉克(Jacques Chirac)采取了行动，包括实施限速规定，强制要求系上安全带，安装雷达等。结果表明，一些悲剧并非不可避免。25年前的欧洲，摩托车事故是器官捐献者的稳定来源。强制要求佩戴头盔后，这样的局面得以终结。

In short, we know what to do. “Globally there is nothing to invent,” says Jean Todt, the UN’s special envoy for road safety. The UN’s target of cutting road deaths to below one million by 2020 is eminently feasible. But governments have to want to reach it, even if that means irritating voters. Don’t just set speed limits; enforce them. Don’t just conduct breathalyser tests; conduct them outside nightclubs on weekend nights. And ban drivers from using phones. The colonisation of the human mind by smartphones is now killing pedestrians. Apps that inform drivers about traffic jams are particularly distracting. “Hands-free phones are not much safer than hand-held phone sets,” cautions the WHO.

简言之，我们知道怎么做。联合国道路安全特使让堠祢(Jean Todt)表示：“就全球而言，没有什么可发明的了。”联合国制定了到2020年道路交通事故死亡人数降至100万以下的目标，这完全可以实现。但各国政府必须希望实现该目标，即便这意味着激怒选民。不要只是制定限速规定，还要加以严格执行。不要只是进行酒精含量测试，还要在周末晚上的夜总会外面进行测试。禁止驾车者在开车时使用电话。现在人类思想受到智能手机的统治，这种行为会危及行人。让驾车者获得拥堵信息的应用尤其令人分心。世卫组织警告称：“免提电话并不比手提电话安全多少。”

One day, when driverless cars arrive, we may marvel that we ever let distracted, shortsighted and occasionally drunk humans pilot large metal projectiles. For now, perhaps the key thing to change is attitudes. Many people (especially in poor countries) get no traffic education at all. Lesson one could be that aggressive driving is not proof of masculinity. Machismo helps explain why 77 per cent of traffic fatalities worldwide (as counted by the WHO) are males.

当无人驾驶汽车来临的那一天，我们可能会惊叹，我们曾经让心不在焉、近视偶尔还会喝酒的人类驾驶巨大的金属导弹。就现在而言，或许改变的关键在于态度。许多人（尤其是在穷国）完全没有接受过交通方面的培训。第一课可能是，肆无忌惮地驾驶并不能证明你有男子汉气概。男子汉气概有助于解释为何在全世界因交通事故死亡的人当中有77%是男性（根据世卫组织的估算）。

Another common attitudinal problem: in countries where cars are relatively new and therefore prestigious, drivers tend to regard themselves as kings and pedestrians as cockroaches. When I spent time in Ghana in 2000, many drivers approaching a village would honk and accelerate — even at night, when they often drove without lights. One morning I woke in a village to the sound of a woman howling. Her son had just been run over. Too many Ghanaian parents know the feeling.

另一个普遍存在的态度问题是：在一些汽车相对还不多见、从而是身份象征的国家里，驾车者往往将自己视为国王，而将行人视为蟑螂。2000年，当我在加纳逗留的时候，许多驾车者在驶近村庄的时候会使劲摁喇叭和加速，即便在晚上也是如此——他们在晚上行驶时往往也不会开灯。一天早上，我在一个村庄醒来后听到一位妇女恸哭的声音。她的儿子刚刚被汽车辗过。太多的加纳父母知道那是什么感受。

The developing world — where over 90 per cent of road deaths happen — could make big gains fast. Todt describes a typical scenario today: an ancient vehicle, discarded from some rich country, is overloaded with people and driven by someone who bought his licence. Then, if an “accident” happens, the ambulance rarely arrives.

发展中世界（逾90%的交通死亡事故发生在发展中世界）在这方面可以很快取得进展。托特描述了当今一幅常见情景：一辆被某个富国丢弃的老旧汽车上载满了人，而司机的驾照是买来的。然后，如果发生“事故”，很少会有救护车来。

Changing all this would cost money. But road crashes cost 1 to 3 per cent of countries’ gross national product, estimates the World Bank. For every death, several more victims survive maimed, often needing lifelong care. Meanwhile, the World Bank’s fund for road safety has an annual budget of just $3m, says Todt.

改变这一切将需要钱。但世界银行估计，道路交通事故成本占到各国国民总产值(GNP)的1%-3%。交通事故中每死一个人，都有其他数位受害者伤残，这些伤残者往往需要终生护理。与此同时，托特表示，世界银行用于道路安全方面的资金预算每年只有300万美元。

The world has so many problems that it’s hard to know where to start. Governments spend lots of energy trying to stop terrorism. It would probably be smarter to devote some of that effort to road safety, not just because it’s a far deadlier problem, but also because unlike with terrorism, we know what works.

全世界有太多的问题，以致于很难知道先解决哪些问题好。各国政府投入大量精力试图打击恐怖主义。将其中一些资源投入到道路安全方面可能是更为明智的做法，这不仅仅是因为这是一个致死率高得多的问题，而且还因为，与恐怖主义不同，我们知道怎么做有效。