With one month of 2017 left to go, Bulgaria’s road death toll reaches 612
A total of 612 people died in accidents on Bulgaria’s roads in the first 11 months of 2017, according to official Interior Ministry statistics.
By the end of November 30, there had been 6302 accidents since January 1, leaving 7924 people injured.
November 2017 itself was a particularly awful month, with 66 people dead and 677 injured.
Interior Minister Valentin Radev said that the days between November 17 and 23 were the worst for road accidents since the beginning of 2017, with 28 people dead in 18 accidents, including one in which the driver and eight passengers died in a bus crash.
November 2016 was a similarly bad month, exceeding even the high road death rate of Bulgaria’s peak summer holiday season.
By the end of November 30 2016, there had been 6836 accidents, leaving 664 people dead and 8609 injured – figures that mean that the numbers of accidents, fatalities and injuries are lower at the same point of 2017.
Bulgaria has the highest road death rate in the European Union, with speeding, reckless driving and drink-driving as contributory factors.
Bulgaria’s government has amended various laws in 2017, as the government pledged a crackdown on the country’s bad driving.
Interior Minister Radev told a November 30 briefing that by November 19, the registrations of 13 228 vehicles had been terminated. Of this total, 8462 had been terminated because the motorist was driving without a licence, 3921 for drink-driving and 845 for driving after using illegal narcotics.
(Photo: Julia Borysewicz/freeimages.com)
