The Commission has published the final figures on road fatalities for 2020, following the publication of the preliminary figures in April 2021. These figures show that an estimated 18 800 people were killed in a road crash last year, an unprecedented annual fall of 17% on 2019. This means almost 4 000 fewer people lost their lives on EU roads in 2020 compared to 2019. However, this was largely due to the effect of the COVID pandemic on mobility, and the drop in fatalities was proportionately less than the sharp falls in traffic levels across the EU.
Preliminary figures for the first six months of 2021 indicate the number of road fatalities increased slightly (2%) compared to the same period in 2020 but was substantially down on the years 2017-2019 (19%).
The Commission has also published a breakdown of fatalities in the EU by road user and (other) ‘main vehicle’ involved in the crash (2019 data, pending the availability of disaggregated road safety data for 2020). It shows clearly that fatalities overwhelmingly occur in collisions involving cars and trucks, and the need to increase the protection of vulnerable road users (VRU) such as pedestrians and cyclists. EU policies are already evolving in this direction with the new mandatory safety measures introduced by the General Safety Regulation focussed on VRU. Vulnerable users also need to be taken systematically into account by countries when applying the Road Infrastructure Safety Management Directive.
Collision matrix
On the same webpage, the European Road Safety Observatory has a new infographic showing road fatalities by road user and (other) ‘main vehicle’ involved in the crash (for EU as a whole based on 2019 data).
Finally, Eurostat has just published regional data on road fatalities and injuries at NUTS 2 level. The original data is taken from CARE but, for some countries, data added from national statistical offices.
