The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute released a new study based on World Health Organization statistics which compares the rates of death by car accidents, heart disease, cancer and cerebrovascular disease in 193 countries. Except while the study is new, the data is fairly old, probably because the study had to go back to 2008 to find data on all causes in all countries.

Both Time and The Washington Post failed to spot this and instead announced that there were new stats on road deaths in the world. (It then got picked up by everyone else.) The 2008 ranking they're claiming is new goes like this:

1. Namibia (45 deaths per 100,000)

2. Thailand (44)

3. Iran (38)

4. Sudan (36)

So actually, there are 2013 statistics for road casualties throughout the world and they are still very high, but about 15 percent lower, for Thailand:

1. Eritrea (48.4 deaths per 100,000)

2. Dominican Repbublic (41.7)

3. Libya (40.5)

4. Thailand (38.1)

See the full rankings here. 

Of course, Thailand is still horribly dangerous and still in the top four, but for the record, our current ranking is fourth, not second.