Focus on accidents

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, seeing a levelling off of the 10 year decline in serious road accidents in rich countries, notes the increase in middle aged men buying powerful motorbikes they cannot manage and the increased use of drugs. Hungary, Germany, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Norway and Australia saw a rise in deaths in the first half of 2002, New Zealand, Spain, Austria, Slovakia, Japan and Denmark maintained a decline. Overall road stats remained the same as the previous year.