Over the last decades, the EU has made great progress in reducing road fatalities. Between 2001 and 2010, Europe cut the number of road deaths by 43% in spite of the increased traffic volumes, and reduced it by another 17% since 2010. Furthermore, with 51.5 road fatalities per one million inhabitants, Europe has the lowest fatality rate for any region in the world. This ratio amounts to 106 in the United States and to 174 globally. However, the progress rate has lately clearly slowed down: change in fatality figures was close to 0 from 2013 to 2014, and 2015 repeated the same pattern. The current slowdown means that efforts must be stepped up, especially at national level, if the strategic target of halving the number of road deaths by 2020 is to be reached. (Author/publisher)
Abstract