Brussels, 24/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - According to figures released on 24 March by the European Commission, there was a total of 25,700 road deaths in 2014 across all 28 Member States of the EU, with the number of road fatalities decreasing by approximately 1% compared to 2013. This is an extremely slight fall, compared to the 8% decrease in 2012 and 2013.
In her presentation of these results, Violeta Bulc, the European commissioner for transport, highlighted the sharp disparities that still existed between countries. Malta, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom have very low fatality rates, with less than 30 deaths per million inhabitants. Four countries still report fatality rates above 90 dead per million inhabitants: Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania. The average EU fatality rate for 2014 is 51 road deaths per million inhabitants.
Violeta Bulc stated, “Every road casualty is one death too many. Our ultimate goal is zero casualties on European roads. We guess, we'll never reach it, but we'll try to get as close as possible”.
The commissioner highlighted the responsibility of the member states and local authorities, whilst noting that the European Commission would also take action, particularly in the context of its work on serious traffic injuries, a subject upon which a study will be launched in autumn this year. It is also working on a mid-term review of European road safety policy, which is expected to be published in May 2015.
Two legislative proposals are expected to be presented by the end of 2016: revision of the regulation on training professional drivers and the re-examination of the European framework for road infrastructure management (see EUROPE 11275). (Jean Comte)