Does money buy safety on the road? Each dot is a country: its GDP per capita against its ordinary danger score (expected harm per trip, × a trip at home). On a log–log scale the relationship is one of the strongest in the whole dataset: r ≈ −0.83. Richer places are dramatically safer — better roads, drained wetlands, piped water, treated malaria.
roadsmalariahomicidefood & watercolour = biggest single contributor · click a dot for the brief
NOMINAL GDP / CAPITA (USD)
PPP GDP / CAPITA (INT'L$)
Read with care. This danger score assumes a traveller taking no malaria prophylaxis, so malarial (and overwhelmingly poor) countries are inflated — which strengthens this correlation. A prepared traveller flattens the poor-country tail; the wealth–safety link would weaken but not vanish (roads and sanitation track income too).
Full ranking — most dangerous first
# Country
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DALY/100k
GDP nom
GDP ppp
driven by
Danger: Ordinary composite (WHO roads, UNODC homicide, WHO malaria, JMP sanitation). GDP: World Bank NY.GDP.PCAP.CD / .PP.CD, latest available. 210 countries with both. methodology · map