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Road safety: Second good year in a row puts Europe firmly on track towards target

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European_Charter2013 is the second year in a row that saw an impressive decrease in the number of people killed on Europe's roads. According to preliminary figures, the number of road fatalities has decreased by 8% compared to 2012, following the 9% decrease between 2011 and 2012. This means that the EU is now in a good position for reaching the strategic target of halving road deaths between 2010 and 2020. Road safety is one of the big success stories of Europe. The 17% decrease since 2010 means that some 9,000 lives have been saved.

Vice President Siim Kallas, commissioner for mobility and transport, said: "Transport safety is a trademark of Europe. This is why it is extremely important that the good results from 2012 were not a one-off. I'm proud to see that the EU is fully back on track to reach the road safety target for 2020. However, there are still 70 people who die on Europe's roads every day, so we cannot be complacent. We must continue our joint efforts at all levels to further improve the safety on European roads."

Country by country statistics (see table below) show that the number of road deaths still varies greatly across the EU. On average, there were 52 road deaths per million inhabitants in the EU. The countries with the lowest number of road fatalities remain the UK, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark, reporting around 30 deaths per million inhabitants. Notably Spain, Germany and Slovakia have improved their positions on the list, moving in among the traditional top performers.

Only a few years ago, in 2011, progress in cutting road deaths fell to a disappointing 2%. However, a reduction of 9% in 2012 and of 8% in 2013 mean that member states are back on track towards the strategic target.

Those member states that have made progress but whose road fatality figures are still much higher than the EU average (Poland, Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania and Greece) are encouraged to strengthen their efforts. The situation in Latvia, where the road safety situation unfortunately did not improve at all during the past year, merits particular attention; the number of road fatalities also increased in Malta and Luxembourg although the total numbers in these countries are so small that the big fluctuations from one year to the other are not statistically significant.

Another worrying feature of the statistics is the situation of vulnerable road users: The number of pedestrians killed is decreasing to a lesser extent than expected and the number of cyclists killed has recently even been increasing. This is partly due to the fact that more and more people cycle; the challenge for member states is to encourage people to use their bicycles rather than their cars more often, but to make sure that the shift from car to bicycle is a safe one.

EU Road Safety Action Programme 2011–2020

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The European Road Safety Action Programme 2011–2020 (see MEMO/10/343) sets out challenging plans to reduce the number of road deaths on Europe's roads by half in ten years. It contains ambitious proposals focusing on making improvements to vehicles, infrastructure and road users' behaviour.

For example, key recent initiatives include the new European driving licence (IP 13/25) and the entry into force of the cross-border enforcement directive, for the pursuit of traffic offences across borders (1). A proposal for improved technical checks of cars has been adopted by the European Parliament (MEMO 14/637), and a major step has been taken towards a strategy to reduce the number of people seriously injured in road traffic (IP 13/236).

Following the breakthrough last year with a new common EU definition of serious road traffic injuries, member states have now started to collect the first data by the new definition. The data collected during 2014 should be available in early 2015 and preparations can then start on a target for reducing the number of seriously injured in road traffic.

From 2015, a strategic target for the reduction of serious road traffic injuries is expected to be adopted.

More information

MEMO/14/245

EU Road Safety Vademecum

Follow Vice-President Kallas on Twitter

Country by country statistics on road deaths for 20132

  Fatalities per million inhabitants (road fatality rate) Evolution of total number of fatalities
2001 2010 2012 2013 2010 - 2013 2011 - 2012 2012 - 2013
Belgique/België 145 77 70 65 -15% -11% -7%
България(Bulgaria) 124 105 82 82 -22% -8% 0%
Česká republika 130 77 71 63 -19% -4% -12%
Danmark 81 46 30 32 -30% -24% 8%
Deutschland 85 45 44 41 -9% -10% -7%
Eesti 146 59 65 61 3% -14% -7%
Éire/Ireland 107 47 35 42 -11% -13% 19%
Ελλάδα (Elláda) 172 112 92 81 -28% -10% -12%
España 136 53 41 37 -30% -8% -10%
France 134 62 56 50 -19% -8% -11%
Hrvatska 146 99 91 86 -14% -7% -6%
Italia 125 70 62 58 -17% -5% -6%
Κύπρος (Kypros) 140 73 61 53 -28% -28% -14%
Latvija 236 103 85 86 -17% -1% 1%
Lietuva 202 95 99 85 -11% 2% -15%
Luxembourg 159 64 66 87 36% 3% 32%
Magyarország 121 74 61 59 -20% -5% -2%
Malta 41 36 27 54 50% -48% 100%
Nederland 62 32 34 - 6% 3% -
Österreich 119 66 63 54 -19% 2% -15%
Polska 145 102 93 87 -15% -15% -6%
Portugal 163 80 68 62 -23% -19% -9%
România 109 117 101 92 -21% 1% -9%
Slovenija 140 67 63 61 -10% -8% -4%
Slovensko 114 69 55 42 -39% -9% -24%
Suomi/Finland 84 51 47 48 -5% -13% 3%
Sverige 66 28 30 28 -1% -11% -7%
United Kingdom 61 30 29 29 -4% -8% -1%
EU 113 62 56 52 -17% -9% -8%

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