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EU Commissioner calls for more efforts to reduce road fatalities

Xinhua, March 31, 2016 Adjust font size:

Despite a recent slowdown in reducing road fatalities, European roads remain the safest in the world, according to the 2015 road safety statistics published by the European Commission on Thursday.

A total of 26, 000 people lost their lives on European Union (EU) roads last year, 5, 500 fewer than in 2010, according to the statistics.

However, there is no improvement at the EU level compared to 2014.

In addition, the Commission estimated that 135, 000 people were seriously injured on EU roads.

Moreover, the social cost, including rehabilitation, healthcare, material damages, etc., of road fatalities and injuries was estimated to be of at least 100 billion euros (114 billion U.S. dollars).

In specific, the average EU fatality rate for 2015 was 51.5 road deaths per 1 million inhabitants, similar to the past two years.

This slowdown, which follows a significant reduction of 8 percent in 2012 and 2013, had several contributing factors, such as a higher interaction between unprotected and motorized road users in European cities.

Vulnerable road users, like pedestrians, cyclists, etc., also accounted for a large proportion of the 135,000 people that were injured.

"Every death or serious injury is one too many. We have achieved impressive results in reducing road fatalities over the last decades but the current stagnation is alarming. If Europe is to reach its objective of halving road fatalities by 2020, much more needs to be done," said Violeta Bulc, EU Commissioner for Transport. Endit