Twenty-five million people have died on the world's roads since the first recorded automobile fatality occurred in London in 1896, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.
Here is an overview of how road deaths have risen to currently kill more than one million people annually.
A huge public health problem
• Road traffic crashes kill an average of 3,242 people every day, or 1.2 million a year, the WHO said in its 2004 Road Traffic Injury Prevention report.
• The 11th leading cause of death globally, crashes injure between 20 and 50 million people a year.
The world's safest and most dangerous countries
• Africa has the world's worst death rate from road crashes, with 28 deaths per 100,000 population, the WHO report The Road Ahead said in June 2006.
• Britain has the safest roads in the world, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) reported in 2004, in terms both of deaths per capita and of deaths per kilometre travelled.
• Some 5.9 people out of every 100,000 are killed on British roads each year, compared with 11 in the European Union, 8.2 in Japan, 15.2 in the US and 25 in Malaysia.
Who is most at risk?
• Ninety per cent of traffic deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries. The BMJ says better trauma care has reduced the death toll in most developed countries.
• Just under three quarters - 73 per cent - of all road traffic fatalities are male. More than half are young adults aged between 15 and 44.
• Pedestrians, cyclists, people on motorised two-wheelers and passengers on public transport are the most vulnerable in low- and middle-income countries.
Asia's deadly roads
• Road deaths jumped by nearly 40 per cent in Asia between 1987 and 1995. In developed nations, they fell by about 10 per cent because of better safety measures.
Economic costs
• The costs of road traffic accidents are estimated at $518 billion globally and $65 billion in low- and middle-income countries.
• The WHO estimates the cost of road traffic accidents exceeds the total amount of development assistance received by low- and middle-income countries.
Sources: WHO World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention, 2004, WHO report The Road Ahead, June 2006 (www.who.int).
An express bus involved in a multi-vehicle pile-up along an inter-city expressway during heavy rain near Kuala Lumpur which occurred earlier this month.