Cyprus registered the largest road deaths increase in the EU, with 15%, in 2017, according to the 12th Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) Report issued by the European Transport Safety Council.
In 2017, 53 road deaths were recorded in Cyprus, seven more than in 2016. As a result Cyprus ranks 19th in the EU as regards road deaths in proportion to the population, while in 2016 it ranked 13th.
According to the report, out of 32 countries monitored by the PIN Programme, 22 registered a drop in the number of road deaths in 2017 compared to 2016 . Estonia leads the ranking with a 32% reduction in the number of road deaths between 2016 and 2017. It is followed by Luxembourg with a 22% decrease, Norway with 21% and Slovenia with 20%. The number of road deaths went up in eight countries, while progress stagnated in Slovakia and Lithuania. The largest increase was registered in Cyprus with 15%, Portugal with 11%, Croatia with 8% and Switzerland with 6%.
As it is noted “the EU is still struggling to reach a breakthrough; the progress in reducing the number of road deaths has slowed down over the last four years. The 2% reduction in 2017 is the same as the reduction in 2016, and follows a 1% increase in 2015 and stagnation in 2014. As a result, the number of road deaths in the EU declined by only 3% since 2013.”
The new report by the European Transport Safety Council shows that road safety progress in the European Union has stagnated for the last four years. The organisation said governments need strong political will, urgent measures and substantial investments in safe infrastructure to reduce the 500 deaths that occur on EU roads every single week.
The weekly number of road deaths in the EU is equivalent to two typical passenger airliners crashing and killing everyone on board.
The latest Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) report shows that EU Member States are struggling to make a breakthrough: 25,250 people lost their lives on EU roads in 2017. Although road deaths declined by 2% last year, they have decreased by just 3% over four whole years since 2013.
This is substantially short of the decrease of 6.7% needed annually to meet the EU target of cutting road deaths by half over the decade to 2020. Up to now, Estonia and Greece are the only EU countries that look on course to meet this target.