The European Commission has published the latest accident figures for the whole European continent: 25,500 people died and 135,000 were seriously injured in road traffic incidents on European roads during 2016. This supposes a reduction of 2% in the number of deaths compared to the previous year, although the data is still considered provisional and so may change.
By country, Spain is the fourth country with the lowest number of deaths per million inhabitants (37), only behind Sweden (27), the United Kingdom (28) and the Netherlands (33) and well below the EU average of mortality on road (50). At the other extreme, the countries with the highest mortality are Bulgaria (99), Romania (97), Latvia (80) and Poland (79).
“After two years of immobility in the figures, 2016 has brought a return of the downward trend, in the last six years, fatalities decreased by 19%,” said community sources. However, although this trend in road accidents in the continent is described as encouraging, the same sources say that they “could be insufficient” to meet the goal set by the European Union to halve the number of fatalities between 2010 and 2020 .
“The statistics… show a significant improvement and constitute an excellent basis to continue working, but it is not a matter of numbers, but loss of lives and families affected by it. EU roadways and the number of seriously injured will be five times higher. I would like to invite all stakeholders to step up their efforts to halve the number of road fatalities between 2010 and 2020,” concluded Transport Commissioner, Violeta Bulc.
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