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

  • Germany’s road safety has worsened for the start of 2017
    September 1, 2017
    Germany has seen an increase in road deaths during the first six months of 2017. The official figures show more than 1,500 people were killed in road crashes in this time period, an increase of 6.2% from the first six months in 2016. The number of road crashes in Germany also increased by 2.7% to 1.28 million for the first six months of 2017 when compared against the same period in 2016.
  • Poor road safety standards for Europe
    August 28, 2019
    Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary have Europe’s most dangerous roads according to official data from Eurostat. In 2017 Romania had 1,951 road deaths while Bulgaria had 682 road deaths and Hungary had 625 road deaths. The EU average for road deaths was 5/100,000 of population in 2017, with a total of 25,257 road deaths during the year. This is a marked drop from the 43,000 road deaths across the EU in 2007.
  • Myanmar road safety concern
    April 7, 2016
    Concern is being expressed at the rapid rise in road deaths in Myanmar. The road fatality rate has increased substantially in recent years, as has the number of vehicles on the country’s road network. In the period from 2009-2014, the number of registered vehicles in Myanmar more than doubled. And in 2014 the World Health Organisation highlighted its concern that Myanmar’s road death rate had more than tripled in less than 10 years. According to official data, Myanmar had over 15,000 road crashes, 25,000
  • Vietnam sees reduction in road deaths and injuries
    October 6, 2014
    Statistics from Vietnam show an improvement in road safety levels, with reductions in both deaths and injuries on the country’s network. For the period from January to September 2014, there were 6,800 deaths caused by road crashes in Vietnam. This was a drop of 4% for the same period in 2013. Meanwhile there were 17,800 injuries caused by road crashes between January and September 2014, a drop of 18% for the same period in 2013. Police data shows that 3.3 million drivers were caught for a range of traffic o