Road accidents in Albania result in high costs for economy

Albania has one of the highest mortality rates in road accidents in Europe, the Albanian Daily News reported Thursday.

It quoted the data of the World Bank, which is an average of 84.7 deaths per year for 100,000 vehicles. Compared to developed Western countries, the number of deaths from accidents in Albania is much higher.

Besides the tragic human cost, accidents are also a heavy burden for the economy. According to the World Bank, the economic cost of road accidents in Albania is on average 130 million euros (about 145 million U.S. dollars) a year, or nearly 1.5 percent of the gross domestic product.

Due to the high costs, the World Bank and the Albanian government have started a joint project worth 128.5 million euros (about 143 million dollars) to improve road safety in Albania in April last year. The objective of the project is to reduce the number of deaths from road accidents until 2020.

Official data from the Albanian Institute of Statistics show that during the years 2012-2014, the number of deaths from road accidents was lowered by 20 percent. But the tendency was reversed last year with the number of people losing their lives in accidents growing by 2.2 percent. Endi