Safe Destinations, Dangerous Roads (2026) — Where Traffic Is the Real Risk

Key findings — free to cite

Bali scores 79/100 for overall safety but just 61 for road safety — an 18-point gap, the widest of any major destination we track. In much of the world the real danger to travellers isn't crime; it's the traffic.

The steepest road-safety gaps are in beloved, broadly-safe destinations — Bali, Palawan, Puebla, Huế and Pune all score well overall but have roads that lag far behind.
These are the places where scooter and road accidents, not crime, send the most travellers home early — a risk most safety guides underplay.
At the other end, Singapore, Kyoto and the Nordic capitals have roads as safe as their streets — reliable transit, enforced rules, walkable cores.
The average road-safety score across 179 major cities is 75.2/100, well below the overall-safety average — transport is consistently the weakest of the four sub-scores.
Computed from Kakapo's transport sub-score across 179 major cities — a road-safety measure no other travel index publishes.

Safe destinations, dangerous roads

These cities are rated broadly safe overall (score 76+) but their road-safety sub-score lags furthest behind. A big gap doesn't mean "don't go" — it means the smart precautions are about the road: helmets and licensed drivers over rented scooters, seatbelts and reputable operators over the cheapest ride, and extra caution as a pedestrian.

City	Overall safety	Road safety	Gap
Bali, Indonesia	79	61	−18
Puebla, Mexico	86	68	−18
Kochi, India	80	64	−16
Pune, India	82	66	−16
Madurai, India	77	62	−15
Palawan, Philippines	83	68	−15
Puducherry, India	76	61	−15
Vadodara, India	76	61	−15
Huế, Vietnam	83	69	−14
Hyderabad, India	78	64	−14
Mérida, Mexico	83	69	−14
Rājkot, India	77	63	−14
Balikpapan, Indonesia	80	67	−13
Bandung, Indonesia	80	67	−13
Konya, Turkey	84	71	−13

Traffic is the traveller's most underrated risk. Road crashes are among the leading causes of death for visitors abroad — well ahead of violent crime in most destinations. The gap above shows where that mismatch is sharpest.

The safest roads in the world

Cities where getting around is as safe as everything else — dependable public transport, enforced traffic rules and walkable centres. The easiest places to move around without a second thought.

#	City	Road safety	Overall
1	Singapore, Singapore	94	93
2	Kyoto, Japan	93	95
3	Sagamihara, Japan	93	94
4	Tokyo, Japan	93	94
5	Kobe, Japan	92	94
6	Nagoya, Japan	92	94
7	Osaka, Japan	92	93
8	Yokohama, Japan	92	95
9	Fukuoka, Japan	91	95
10	Hamamatsu, Japan	91	94
11	Hiroshima, Japan	91	95
12	Sapporo, Japan	91	95

How we measured it

Every Kakapo city score breaks into four sub-scores; one is transport safety — how safe it is to get around, covering road-traffic risk, transit reliability and pedestrian conditions. We ranked 179 major cities (population above 500,000) by the gap between their overall score and their transport score, live from the same data the rest of the site uses. Scores draw on national travel advisories from seven governments plus crime, road and local data; full weighting is at https://kakapo.travel/about/methodology. Scores are comparative model estimates, not crash counts.

Cite this study

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Ready-to-use citation

Kakapo Editorial Team (2026). Safe Destinations, Dangerous Roads. Kakapo. https://kakapo.travel/blog/dangerous-roads-2026

Writing a travel-safety or road-safety story? We give journalists custom data pulls at no cost — the full road-safety table, a specific country, or a city-by-city breakdown. Email [email protected] and we usually reply the same day.

Kakapo publishes real safety scores for every destination, drawing on national travel advisories, local crime data, healthcare infrastructure, and night-safety measures. Kakapo Studies is our research imprint — independent editorial, no advertiser influence on scores. Contact: [email protected].