Skip to main content

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.

Related Content

  • Europe’s road safety targets at risk
    July 10, 2015
    This new analysis has been published by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC). According to the ETSC data, 2014 showed the lowest annual reduction in EU road deaths since 2001. In all 25,845 people were killed in road crashes in the 28 nations of the EU during 2014. This represented a decrease of just 0.6% compared to 2013. EU member states now need to cut deaths by almost 8% each year until 2020 to meet the target set in 2010 to halve deaths within a decade.
  • Road safety is an EU priority
    March 2, 2012
    The preparation of the new EU Road Safety Policy for the next decade will take place during Spain's presidency of the EU. Patrick Smith reports. An the past 10 years, half a million people have been killed on European Union roads, with road crashes costing an annual €160 billion or 2% the EU's GDP.
  • Europe's road safety gain
    February 28, 2012
    New data shows an improvement in Europe's road safety during 2010.
  • Wide variations in Europe's road safety figures
    May 14, 2012
    Road safety in Romania continues to be a major issue, with the country seeing more deaths in 2009 than in 2001. A study by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) shows that Romanian roads are eight times more dangerous than similar links in Sweden, which has Europe’s best record for road safety (see also Safety Report). Romania, along with Malta, has bucked a trend within Europe of reducing road accidents levels between 2001 and 2009 according to the report. However, while Malta’s road fatality rate