Jan 09, 2014 – Dying Abroad

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ANCHOR LEAD: THE MOST DANGEROUS COUNTRIES FOR TRAVELERS HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED, ELIZABETH
TRACEY REPORTS

Travel is something many of us view with pleasure, anticipating new vistas with excitement. Yet all too often, travel can end in catastrophe, and now a study by David Bishai and colleagues at Johns Hopkins shows how and where that is most likely to occur.BISHAI: Thailand and Vietnam were two of the most unsafe countries in the world, the reason they’re unsafe is because of motorcycle crashes among American tourists. People who are not really skilled in driving and are unfamiliar with how fast the motorcycles are going in these countries are getting killed. Other countries that turned out to be very dangerous were Morocco and South Africa, because of the ambient risk there. Drivers there are just getting used to moving at high speeds and the roads aren’t kept up nor has the traffic enforcement kept up with this new risk. :31

Bishai says all travelers should view motorized vehicles with skepticism in middle and low income countries, and avoid them if possible. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.