If you’ve ever had a scooter scream up behind you on a Rome sidewalk, held your breath as the taxi driver negotiated a stretch of wet mountain road while sending a text, or narrowly escaped being mown down by a foreign bus in a clearly marked pedestrian crossing, you know traffic laws too often have little — or nothing — to do with reality.

While those stunning NASA shots of Earth’s glowing networks of highways and byways can be both exhilarating and vaguely discouraging (really, who has the time?), the truth is that how safe they are depends on a vast number of details. Not least of these is how an individual government views the importance of road safety. Measureable factors including maintenance and infrastructure, signage and surface conditions, and traffic laws and their enforcement are only part of the equation.

Traffic near Porta Nuova, Palermo, Sicily © Vvoeva le | Dreamstime.com

More subtle and every bit as important is the issue of road culture. In cities throughout Italy, for instance, wide pedestrian crossings and lights give the false impression that pedestrians have the right of way. The truth, however, is that road culture dictates the right of way belongs to vehicles approaching the crossing from any direction. Shouting drivers, careening sports cars and scooters with helmetless passengers passing where there’s no room are the rule, not the exception.

It all comes at a staggering price: Each year, there are an estimated 1.24 million deaths and 50 million injuries in road crashes around the world, many of them preventable. In fact, road crashes account for the highest annual number of deaths of healthy Americans traveling abroad, and the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health estimates between 20 and 30 percent of crashes occur during work-related travel. Factor in commuting, and the number increases by another 50 percent.

While risks vary around the world, it is never wise to assume a level of safety based on how developed a country may be, how clean your own driving record is or how experienced you are as an international traveler. Whether renting a car or utilizing the local metro system, it’s imperative for corporate travelers to understand local traffic laws, road conditions and road rules in the countries they are visiting — even if they have no intention of getting behind the wheel themselves.

“When traveling internationally, you may encounter traffic and road conditions that differ significantly from that of your home country,” emphasizes William R. Halliday, director of global security, Marsh & McLennan Companies. “Traffic laws, quality of vehicles, conditions of roads, and even the level of adherence to traffic regulations and common road courtesies may be different from what you are familiar with at home. So whether you plan to drive, are being driven or will just be a pedestrian, it is important to educate yourself about your destination before you travel.”

Rochelle Sobel, founder and director of the nonprofit Association for Safe International Road Travel, or ASIRT, knows both the importance and related challenges firsthand. Following the tragic — and preventable — death of her 25-year-old son, Aron, in a road crash in Turkey in 1995, Sobel became intimately aware of the road safety issues that face travelers when abroad. Since then, she has turned a devastating personal loss into a worldwide awareness of these issues through education and advocacy, and established and helped craft global programs and partnerships that promote safer roads throughout the world.

“There are many factors at play, but enforcement is key,” says Sobel. “Many countries do not realize that road crashes cost them so much. And too often, the person who is killed or injured is also the breadwinner. So the strain on families is enormous, as is the economic cost — hospitalization, rehabilitation, the loss of a family member. It’s also a drain on tourism. Many countries where the crash rate is high rely on tourism and don’t realize how a road crash involving tourists impacts the industry as a whole.”

Rochelle Sobel speaks about her son on behalf of the Association for Safe International Road Travel. © Association for Safe International Road Travel

Sobel adds there is often a lack of understanding that road crashes are preventable. Unlike diseases with no known cure, many road-related deaths are preventable through the use of seat belts, helmets, child safety devices, well-lit crosswalks, increased visibility and an attitude of zero tolerance of driving while under the influence of alcohol.

“These things are so amenable to change, if there is political will to make those changes,” she says. “This is key. There must be enough economic savvy to realize that this is an investment that pays. It’s also important to use the term ‘crash’ rather than ‘accident.’ This is an essential distinction — especially so because in some countries there is a sense of fatalism, an attitude that these are just accidents that were bound to happen rather than crashes that could have been prevented.”

In addition to working closely with the U.S. Congress, Department of State and Department of Transportation, ASIRT works with U.S. embassies and businesses around the world in an effort to raise awareness about road safety from a global perspective. ASIRT is one of six partners in the Bloomberg Global Road Safety Project (a Bloomberg Foundation public health initiative), along with the World Health Organization, EMBARQ, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, World Bank Global Road Safety Facility and the Global Road Safety Partnership.

“It is very important that business travelers be aware of local driving customs and behaviors,” offers Mike Watson, global road safety manager, Shell International Petroleum Co. “They need to be prepared even if they are just passengers of approved transport providers. In many countries we even have bans on night driving, as it is just not safe based on the local infrastructures of the country. Journey plans help individuals prepare themselves and include emergency contact numbers, routes to take and avoid, etc.”

As in so many instances, information truly is power — but gathering that information can be a daunting task. ASIRT produces Road Travel Reports that do much of the work for travelers. The reports, available to leisure and corporate travelers via the ASIRT website, are an invaluable travel resource containing exhaustive and comprehensive country-specific information about laws, driving culture, what to be aware of, listings of particularly dangerous roads or conditions, transportation options and resources to turn to in the event that help is needed (including detailed embassy contact information).

Watson says it has been his company’s business travel policy for many years to provide this type of resource to employees who travel for work. “It’s also part of our corporate Health, Safety, Security and Environment policy: duty and care for people,” he explains. “All employees who travel abroad receive travel alerts that advise them about business travel in the country they are going to. This includes information on driving (to hire/rent a car, to use specialized taxi providers), journey planning and security issues. If an individual is going to drive in a foreign country, they must also have a valid driver’s license for the country they will be driving in. In some countries employees are not permitted to drive due to safety or security reasons.”

A taxi speeds along a Bangkok street © Steve Allen | Dreamstime

William R. Halliday, director of global security, Marsh & McLennan Companies, agrees. “We have 54,000 employees globally, many of whom travel internationally, and we consider road safety to be an important part of our overall travel risk management program. We provide all of our employees with access to public and private sector road and vehicle safety information and encourage them to use that information during their pretrip planning for both business and leisure travel. Last year, our employees traveled to over 180 countries on behalf of our clients, so we understand the issues associated with travel-related risk and the importance of protecting our company’s people. Over one million traffic-related fatalities occur worldwide each year — that’s a risk that is often overlooked when traveling.”

Likewise, reminds Sobel, it’s up to travelers to make wise choices. Even in less developed countries with relatively few cars and drivers, road safety is of critical importance. According to ASIRT’s statistics, more than 90 percent of all road fatalities actually take place in low- and middle-income countries. Every country, city and system presents different challenges, from signage to license requirements to road surface maintenance and how to legally park. Traveling to Lebanon? Rolling blackouts mean traffic lights in cities are nonfunctional for hours each day. Stopped by a traffic cop in Moscow? The law you “broke” may well be an arbitrary one connected to a cash-on-the-spot fine. And, as Sobel points out, every traveler is a pedestrian — all tourists cross a street at some point. In many countries, pedestrian crossings absolutely are not respected.

“Laws and road cultures are different,” Sobel elaborates, “and even if traffic laws exist, they may not be respected. If you’re asking yourself whether you should go by bus or cab, you need to know which cab is safer and whether you can assume the driver will be rested and alert and will follow the traffic rules. Regardless of who is driving, you have to know if they are following the rules, and you have to be brave enough to say something if they are not. ”

Since the night she gathered with friends and family to hold a vigil in front of the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C., Sobel has spoken at the United Nations and presented at forums around the world. She believes there’s a growing light at the end of the road safety tunnel. At the time of her son’s death, even the U.S. State Department didn’t have much road safety information available to international travelers. Though Sobel admits their initial reaction was, “Is it a problem?” the State Department now has consular information sheets and expanded information on road safety issues and laws in many countries. They have also become partners with ASIRT.

While the U.N. has passed multiple resolutions regarding road safety, and the World Health Organization has put together the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration (of which ASIRT is a member) and the Bloomberg Global Road Safety Project is under way, the world’s roads remain a dangerous and often confusing domain. Ultimately, it’s up to travelers to provide themselves with the right tools for travel — including information that can help ensure that whatever road they travel, it will eventually lead safely home.