Greece’s road safety problem from single vehicle crashes

Single vehicle crashes are a serious problem in Greece. The country has the highest rate of deaths in the European Union from single-vehicle crashes (SVC) involving just one vehicle.
May 31, 2017 Read time: 1 min
Single vehicle crashes are a serious problem in Greece. The country has the highest rate of deaths in the European Union from single-vehicle crashes (SVC) involving just one vehicle.

According to the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), SVCs are responsible for one third of road fatalities in the EU in the 2013-2015 period. In Greece, however, they were the cause of 42% of road deaths, ahead of Luxembourg and Cyprus with 41%, Belgium with 38%, Norway with 37% and France with 36%.


More specifically, mortality rates in Greece from SVCs are on average the EU’s highest, with 34 deaths/million inhabitants each year. Moreover, 35% of SVC fatalities involved motorcycle riders who are more exposed to danger compared with car and truck drivers.

SVC mortality rates are higher in the 18-24 age group, with an average of 72 deaths in Greece/million people in this bracket. This is way above the average of 23 EU countries, with 38 young drivers and riders/million killed in SVCs.

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