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Mobility and Transport
News article17 October 2022Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport

Road safety: European Commission rewards effective initiatives and publishes 2021 figures on road fatalities

Today the European Commission will host the annual Excellence in Road Safety Awards. These awards recognise the contributions of the European Road Safety Charter's community of members towards the common goal of improved road safety across Europe.

Over 100 initiatives were nominated for this prestigious accolade, with 15 projects being shortlisted. They are:

  • Centrum Bezpieczeństwa Ruchu Drogowego sp. z o.o., Poland: Bezpieczna Autostrada / Safe Motorway – Social Campaign;
  • Zavod Reševalni pas, Slovenia: Rescue lane in case of traffic jams on highways;
  • Echopix s.r.o., Czechia: Safety of seniors in transport
  • AECA-ITV, Spain: If you care about safety, get a roadworthiness test done;
  • Initiative für sichere Straßen GmbH, Germany: EDDA+ Hazard Score Map;
  • Riksförbundet M Sverige, Sweden: M Connect - The app that rewards smart drivers;
  • Preventiedienst Stad Leuven, Belgium: Vrkeer, a virtual reality serious game;
  • ANWB  Streetwise, the Netherlands: De verkeersgame (traffic game);
  • Fondation VINCI Autoroutes, France : Les jeunes au volant,
  • Platforma VIZE 0 (The Vision 0 Platform), Czechia: Vision Zero for young drivers;
  • HUMDA, Hungary: HUMDA Road Safety - safety comes first;
  • Acciona Energia, Spain: Drive Safe Programme,;
  • CTT Correios de Portugal, Portugal: CTT Road Safety Programme 2015 – 2021;
  • Magánvállalkozók Nemzeti Fuvarozó Ipartestülete NiT Hungary, Hungary: With steady hands on five axles, a competition seeking the best Hungarian truck driver!;
  • Mjam, Austria: Mjam Rider Safety.

The awards will be granted to the best project in each of  the in four award categories: best examples of the “safe system approach; best road safety project targeting young people; best road safety technology initiative; and best road safety project for professional drivers, plus the “Jacques Barrot” audience choice award. 

More information on the shortlisted projects.

Final 2021 statistics on road fatalities

The Commission is today publishing the final figures on road fatalities for 2021, following the publication of the preliminary data in March 2022. These figures show that an estimated 19 900 people were killed on EU roads last year, a 6% increase in relation to 2020. This followed an unprecedented annual fall of 17% between 2019 and 2020. The picture over the last two years has been strongly influenced by the traffic levels in each country which were considerably lower during the pandemic. For some Member States, the post-lockdown increase in road fatalities is so significant that it calls for deeper analysis and urgent action.

EU-wide, there were 45 road deaths per million inhabitants in 2021. The fatality rate ranges from 20/million in Sweden and 22/million in Denmark to 81/million in Bulgaria and 92/million in Romania (This ranking excludes countries with fewer than 100 fatalities per year).

Estimates for 2022

Preliminary figures for the first seven months of 2022 indicate the number of road deaths has increased again, by more than 10% on average, compared with 2021. Some Member States have seen significantly larger rises. The EU-wide estimate for road deaths in 2022 to date is still below that of the pre-pandemic year 2019, though monthly fluctuations make an accurate prediction for the entire year difficult. The current pace of change is insufficient to meet the EU’s target of halving the number of deaths by 2030.

To this end, the Commission is working closely with Member States to ensure that they implement a holistic safe-system approach – widely accepted as the best means to tackling road safety - as part of their national road safety strategies for the decade to 2030.

The Commission has also published a series of reports as part of its European Road Safety Observatory, providing detailed data and analysis on a range of road safety topics such as children, seniors, novice drivers, cyclists, drink-driving, personal mobility devices, driver distraction and seat-belt wearing.

Background

The European Road Safety Charter, initiated in 2004 by the European Commission, is the largest civil society platform on road safety. More than 3 500 public and private entities (companies of all types and sizes, automobile clubs, associations, schools, local authorities and others) have committed to the Charter. The Charter invites members to make a commitment, pledging to take a specific measurable action within their area of responsibilities. Since 2006, the Excellence in Road Safety Awards have been presented to organisations that have carried out a particularly interesting and effective road safety initiative.

The European Commission is working to deliver its EU Road Safety Policy Framework 2021-2030 to halve the number of fatalities and serious injuries on European roads by 2030, as a milestone on the way to ‘Vision Zero’ – zero fatalities and serious injuries by 2050.

For More Information

Collision Matrix: Road traffic fatalities in the EU by road user and (other) ‘main vehicle’ involved in the crash

Urban Collision Matrix: Road traffic fatalities in the EU by road users and (other) ‘main vehicle’ involved in the crash – urban areas only.

Commission's road safety work and EU road safety statistics and analysis

European Road Safety Charter

2021 statistics on road deaths

 

Absolute number

Rate per million population

% change 2021 in relation to:

 

2021

2019

2020

2021

2020

2019

Average 2017-19

EU-27

19 900

51

42

45

6%

-13%

-14%

Belgium

 516

56

43

45

3%

-20%

-17%

Bulgaria

 561

90

67

81

21%

-11%

-12%

Czechia

 532

58

48

50

3%

-14%

-14%

Denmark

 130

34

28

22

-20%

-35%

-28%

Germany

2 562

37

33

31

-6%

-16%

-19%

Estonia

 55

39

44

41

-7%

6%

-1%

Ireland

 137

29

30

27

-7%

-2%

-5%

Greece

 608

64

54

57

4%

-12%

-14%

Spain

1 533

37

29

32

12%

-13%

-15%

France

2 944

50

39

45

16%

-9%

-11%

Croatia

 292

73

58

72

23%

-2%

-7%

Italy

2 875

53

40

49

20%

-9%

-13%

Cyprus

 45

59

54

50

-6%

-13%

-12%

Latvia

 147

69

73

78

6%

11%

6%

Lithuania

 148

67

63

53

-15%

-20%

-19%

Luxembourg

 24

36

42

38

-8%

9%

-13%

Hungary

 544

62

47

56

18%

-10%

-12%

Malta

 9

32

21

17

-18%

-44%

-49%

Netherlands

 509

34

30

29

-1%

-13%

-11%

Austria

 362

47

39

41

5%

-13%

-12%

Poland

2 245

77

66

59

-10%

-23%

-22%

Portugal

 557

67

52

54

4%

-19%

-16%

Romania

1 765

96

85

92

7%

-5%

-7%

Slovenia

 114

49

38

54

43%

12%

15%

Slovakia

 247

50

45

45

0%

-9%

-8%

Finland

 225

38

40

41

1%

7%

-2%

Sweden

 210

22

20

20

3%

-5%

-21%

Switzerland

 200

22

26

23

-12%

7%

-8%

Norway

 80

20

17

15

-14%

-26%

-25%

Iceland

 9

17

22

24

13%

50%

-33%

Liechtenstein

0

0

26

0

n/a

n/a

n/a

Source: CARE (Community Road Accident) database. Figures are generally those as reported by police. Population data are from Eurostat. Data for 2021 are compared with three time-periods: 2020 (the previous year), 2019 (the baseline year for the target of 50% fewer deaths by 2030) and the average of 2017-19 (to take account of fluctuations in small countries). The percentage changes in the table are based on the absolute number of fatalities, not the rate per million inhabitants. Provisional figures IE (2018-2021), FI (2021). In the NL, the number of deaths registered by the police is under-reported and equates to around 85-90% of the total number published nationally (582 in 2021). There was one road fatality in Liechtenstein in 2020 and zero in 2019 and 2021.

Details

Publication date
17 October 2022
Author
Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport