The first decade of the 21st century saw the lowest levels of road deaths since systematic reporting began in most member countries of the International Transport Forum. Overall, the number of people killed on the roads in 2012 declined by 3.1% in the 30 countries for which provisional data are available, a continuation of the positive trend observed in the previous two decades. At the same time, some of the countries with the worst fatality rates in the sample recorded significant increases in their road fatalities in 2012: Georgia and Azerbaijan (+15%). In countries with low numbers of people killed on the roads, relatively small changes in fatalities have large impacts on figures for annual change (particularly marked with Iceland and Malta). Germany and Sweden, which recorded large increases in fatalities in 2011, saw results more in line with long run trends in 2012 with improvements of 10.2% and 7.2% respectively. (Author/publisher)
Abstract