Brussels, 20/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - In 2004, there were 216 million private cars in the 25 EU Member States, a 38% increase since 1990. This figure was released by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, to coincide with European Car-free Day, which takes place on 22 September and is part of the European Mobility Week (see EUROPE 9266). According to Eurostat, the greatest rises were in Lithuania (+167%, Latvia (+142%), Portugal (+135%, Poland (+128%) and Greece (+121%). There were 472 cars per 1,000 inhabitants on average in the EU25 in 2004, compared with 759 in the United States (in 2003). The highest ratio was in Luxemburg (with 659 cars per 1,000 inhabitants), followed by Italy (5581), Portugal (572), Germany (546), Malta 525) and Austria (501). At the other end of the scale are to be found Slovakia (222), Hungary (280) and Latvia (297). In Sweden, Denmark and Cyprus more than 90% of cars had petrol engines, while Austria (49%), Belgium (47%) and France (43%) had the highest shares of diesel engines.
In 2004, there were 95 road accident deaths per million inhabitants, this rate having decreased steadily from 162 in 1991. Although the rate has fallen in nearly all Member States, the total number of deaths due to road accidents was more than 43,000 in the EU25 in 2004, says Eurostat. Between 1991 and 2004, the fatality rate halved or more in Portugal, Estonia, Spain, Germany, France and Luxemburg. In 2004, the Member Stats with the lowest rates were Malta (33 deaths per million inhabitants), the Netherlands (49), Sweden (53) and the United Kingdom (56). However, Latvia (222), Lithuania (218, Cyprus (160) and Poland 150) recorded the highest rates. In the USA, the rate was 146 in 2004.