According to the World Health Organization, Iceland is the safest country in the world when it comes to traffic. Here, the probability of dying in traffic is the lowest in the world, despite the fact that our road system could use some improving. With long gravel sections, single-lane bridges, and blind hills that pop up all around Iceland. And then the winter season, with icy roads, black ice, snow blindness and darkness. We must also not forget all the tourists who rent cars to travel around the country, all year round. Despite this, the number of traffic deaths per year is only 2.05 per 100 thousand inhabitants. Next comes Norway with 2.12 and Switzerland with 2.25. In fourth place is Ireland with 3.13 deaths per 100 thousand inhabitants, while Sweden has 3.14 deaths. The most dangerous country, with the most deaths, is Saudi Arabia, with 35.94 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, almost twenty times more than in Iceland. Thailand is in second place with 32.21, and Malaysia in third place with 22.48 traffic deaths per hundred thousand inhabitants. The best road system in the world is the Dutch one, while Argentina boasts a road system that is considered downright dangerous, the worst in the world, and especially up in the Andes and in the south of Patagonia.
Photographs & text: Páll Stefánsson
Reykjavík 11/08/2023 : A7R IV, A7R III : FE 200-600mm G, FE 2.8/100mm GM, FE 1.4/24 GM
