Skip to main content

Europe’s road death rate still too high

There is widespread consensus across Europe that the road death rate remains too high. There was an average of 51 road deaths/million inhabitants in the EU during 2016. Overall, there was a 2% drop in the number of road deaths between 2015-2016 in the EU. But this 2% fall in 2016 followed a 1% increase in road deaths during 2015 and a plateau during 2014. Overall, the number of road deaths recorded in Europe has fallen by a mere 1% since 2013. Switzerland was the Road Safety PIN Award Winner 2017, with the
July 12, 2017 Read time: 1 min

There is widespread consensus across Europe that the road death rate remains too high. There was an average of 51 road deaths/million inhabitants in the 3287 EU during 2016. Overall, there was a 2% drop in the number of road deaths between 2015-2016 in the EU. But this 2% fall in 2016 followed a 1% increase in road deaths during 2015 and a plateau during 2014. Overall, the number of road deaths recorded in Europe has fallen by a mere 1% since 2013. Switzerland was the Road Safety PIN Award Winner 2017, with the country recording a new drop in road deaths to 26/million inhabitants. This represents a 15% reduction between 2015 and 2016. Overall Switzerland has seen a 34% drop in road deaths between 2010 and 2016. This compares favourably with the 19% drop in road deaths for Europe as a while during this period.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Improving road safety for Spain
    February 1, 2013
    Spain continues to lower its road fatality rate, with 2012 being the 9th consecutive year in which crash-related deaths have been reduced. There were 1,304 fatalities on Spain’s roads during 2012, a drop of 180 compared with the previous year. The number of accidents involving pedestrians has also been reduced although the number of accidents involving motorcyclists was similar to the previous year. Of concern is that the fact that cyclist fatalities increased. Of those vehicle occupants killed, 22% were no
  • Road savvy WIM prolongs highways and saves nations vital cash
    May 28, 2013
    A leading WIM system manufacturer is playing a key role in efforts to reduce the number of overloaded trucks costing developing economies around the world billions of dollars in accidents and damage to roads, while another company has won a major contract in South America. Guy Woodford reports. The prevalence of overloaded trucks on the road networks of developing countries and the accidents and structural damage they cause wastes valuable, limited resources in some of the world’s poorest economies, diverti
  • GRAA winner profile: Thailand adopts integrated road safety management to cut casualties
    June 11, 2021
    IRF recognises value of national road injury risk diagnosis programme
  • The DURABROADS project targets safer mobility
    April 2, 2014
    The innovative DURABROADS project will help deliver a sustained reduction of fatalities in the long term, writes the ERF’s José Diez In 2012, Europe recorded the lowest number of fatalities since the first data were collected. All in all, fatalities were down by 9% in 2012, which means that 3,000 lives were saved that year. Should the current pace continue, we can be confident that the ambitious objective of reducing fatalities by 50% by 2020, compared to 2010, will be reached. To achieve the goals of