With a month left to 2016, Bulgaria could be on track to beat last year’s road death numbers
On December 1 2016, with a month left to the year, the number of road deaths in Bulgaria since January was threatening to come close or even be worse than all of 2015.
According to statistics from Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry, there had been 664 deaths in traffic accidents across the country by November 30 2016 – just 16 fewer than the total for 2015.
In 2015, the number of road deaths in Bulgaria added up to 680, higher than 2014’s total of 653 and 2013’s total of 597.
Those numbers mean that in 2016, in 11 months, Bulgaria has already exceeded the number of road deaths in 2013 and 2014.
November 2016’s death toll on Bulgarian roads, of 68, exceeded that for the customarily most fatal months – July and August, when there is peak summer season traffic. In each of those months, the death toll was 67.
The lowest number of road deaths in 2016 was in January (31) and in the shortest month, February (38).
So far in 2016, there have been 6836 vehicle accidents, leaving – apart from those dead – a total of 8609 people injured.
In 2015, the number of road accidents in Bulgaria was 7296, leaving 8946 people injured.
Along with its northern neighbour Romania, Bulgaria has one of the highest road death rates in the European Union.
