Bulgaria had highest road fatality rate in EU in 2023 – final official figures

Bulgaria had the highest road fatality rate in the European Union in 2023, the European Commission (EC) said on October 10, citing final official figures.

Bulgaria’s road fatality rate in 2023 was 82 per million inhabitants. A total of 526 people died in accidents on Bulgaria’s roads last year, according to the EC.

In second place was Romania, with 1545 road deaths, a rate of 81 per million inhabitants.

Bulgaria’s 2023 road fatality rate was one per cent lower than in 2022, was 16 per cent lower than in 2019 and 18 per cent lower than the country’s 2017-2019 average.

The EU said that in 2023, 20 400 people lost their lives in road crashes across the EU, marking a 1 per cent decrease from the previous year, with 46 road deaths per million inhabitants.

Although the longer-term trend shows a 10 per cent reduction compared to 2019, the current rate of decrease falls short of the EU’s intermediate goal to halve road death and serious injuries by 2030, which requires a 4.5 per cent annual reduction, the EC said.

Progress continues to be very uneven between member states, with Czechia, Cyprus, Poland, Romania and Finland registering their lowest figures since modern records began, the Commission said.

Poland reported a 35 per cent drop in the number of fatalities between 2019 and 2023 while Ireland reported an increase of 32 per cent.

The overall ranking of countries’ fatality rates has not changed significantly: Sweden and Denmark continue to have the safest roads, with 22 and 26 deaths per million inhabitants, respectively, while Bulgaria and Romania – in spite of improvements – reported the highest rates with respectively 82 and 81 fatalities per million inhabitants in 2023.

Currently, every week, about 400 people die in road crashes on European roads, the EC said.

It said that the EU is working towards “vision zero”, or the objective of eliminating road deaths and serious injuries by 2050.

“While the Commission has been a strong driver of action on the EU level, achieving this goal requires cooperative action on national and local level as well,” the EC said.

Annual road deaths almost halved between 2001 and 2010, but progress has been slowing down since the early 2010s, it said.

The figures published on October 10 are the definitive road fatality count for 2023, following the release of preliminary data in March 2024.

Preliminary figures for the first half of 2024 indicate that the number of deaths on EU roads has remained stable, compared to the same period in 2023. 

(Photo: Pixabay)

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