Skip to main content

Improving road safety worldwide

The UK’s Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) says that road safety requires a major transformation to halve road fatalities by 2020. Data shows that road injuries present a significant public health concern worldwide. Road crashes are one of the top 10 causes of death globally. But despite roads in the EU becoming safer each year, the reduction of road fatalities since 2010 has reached a plateau. In 2018, there were 25,100 reported road fatalities across the 28 EU member states. The average road fatality
June 27, 2019 Read time: 2 mins
The UK’s Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) says that road safety requires a major transformation to halve road fatalities by 2020. Data shows that road injuries present a significant public health concern worldwide. Road crashes are one of the top 10 causes of death globally. But despite roads in the EU becoming safer each year, the reduction of road fatalities since 2010 has reached a plateau.

In 2018, there were 25,100 reported road fatalities across the 28 EU member states. The average road fatality rate in 2018 was 49/1 million inhabitants, which constitutes a 1% decrease from 2017.

It is apparent that there is a lot of work to do if the EU is to reach its target of reducing road fatalities and serious injury by 50% before 2020, according to TRL.

A number of key factors in boosting safety have been identified by TRL, which provides leading research into road safety and is committed to developing safe transport systems for the future.

According to TRL, it is important to look at road safety as a major public health issue. And with traffic volumes increasing year-on-year, driver behaviours such as speeding and mobile phone use are key contributors to road injury. In addition, TRL says that it is vital for the transport sector to innovate new technologies that enable safer transport and shift gears in approaches to enforcement and education.

Related Content

  • US road safety concern
    June 18, 2021
    There is concern over a worrying trend in US road safety
  • Road safety has improved worldwide
    January 5, 2024
    Road safety has improved worldwide but still falls short of targets.
  • Reduced road casualty rates for EU 27 nations
    December 5, 2013
    Road safety continues to improve in Europe, with official statistics for 2012 showing a drop in fatalities of 2,661 compared with the figures for 2011. The latest data from Pan-European police body TISPOL shows an encouraging trend towards better road safety, highlighting improvements right across the EU. In 2012, a total of 27,700 people were killed in road crashes in the European Union’s 27 member states, equivalent to 55 people/million inhabitants. This was the lowest road fatality rate so far recorded s
  • IAM and Brake comment on increased UK road crashes
    September 24, 2015
    Both the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) and road safety charity Brake have expressed serious concern over official figures showing increased road deaths in the UK. The Department of Transport’s Reported Road Casualties Great Britain: 2014 Annual Report says there were 1,775 reported road deaths in 2014, an increase of 4% compared with 2013. The IAM has called for a raft of measures to reverse the disappointing increase in numbers of people killed and injured on UK roads. It added the number of people