Modern Medicine Is Neglecting Road Traffic Crashes

Don Redelmeier and Barry McLellan admonish the medical community for failure to act on the vast problem of road traffic crashes. Despite a high burden of disease, motor vehicle trauma has not generated proportionate attention in clinical medicine, public health agencies, or the wider community. The relative neglect arises in part from a denial of aggregate statistics, the banality of everyday crashes, and the lack of a labelled lobby group. Further clinical factors include biased beliefs among surviving patients, segregation of clinical services, inescapable research limitations, and idiosyncratic scientific traditions. Additional policy barriers arise from conflicting economic priorities, fundamental insuperability, and inescapable cultural diversity. Significant progress toward mitigating motor vehicle trauma will likely continue by modest positive incremental gains in road safety. Policy Recommendations to Improve Motor Vehicle Safety Continue to emphasize motor vehicle trauma as an ongoing public health epidemic through work by the WHO and other agencies. Apply insights from behavioural decision science to mitigate motor vehicle trauma; most crashes can be prevented by a small change in driver behaviour. Explore and address the relative shortfall in philanthropic support from large manufacturing industries. Ensure strategies to prevent motor vehicle trauma are informed by science and implemented with stakeholder involvement of community values. Language: en