Latin America's traffic far deadlier than crime

MONTEVIDEO: Tourists and locals panicked by Latin America´s high crime rates face a far deadlier regional threat, with automobile accidents claiming more lives each year than the region´s notorious underworld.

Whether in Bogota or Caracas, the scene is the same: motorcycles zigzagging between cars like skiers on a fast-paced slope.

"Look," a Montevideo taxi driver grumbles to himself after speeding through a right turn and nearly plowing down a pedestrian, "she thinks she owns the road."

The story is the same across Latin America, where crosswalk lights are more decorative than functional, speed limits are ignored, right of way to pedestrians is a myth and traffic lights are disdained.

On Friday, 14 Jehovah´s Witnesses died in Honduras when a bus ran off the road due to "speed and recklessness," local authorities said.

And nine people were killed and more than 39 wounded Sunday in two bus accidents on Venezuelan roads.

Such stories are common in Latin American, where in 2013, 16 in 100,000 people died in road accidents, according to the International Automobile Federation (FIA).

In France -- a country known for its high rate of deadly accidents -- the number fell closer 6.4 deaths per 100,000 people, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a 2013 report. And in Iceland, the rate was at 0.3 people.

Worst off is the Dominican Republic, with 41.7 deaths per 100,000 residents, according to WHO.