Euro road deaths slashed

Technical advancements and stricter safety laws in passenger cars have helped European road deaths plummet in the last decade, according to a report released yesterday.

Figures from the European Transport Safety Council show that fatalities involving drivers or passengers in the EU and Switzerland have been slashed from 28,000 in 2001 to 12,345 in 2012.

And there are huge improvements to come, according to the Council (ETSC), which claimed a combination of tougher seatbelt warning laws and firmer drink-driving enforcement could save another 6500 lives a year on the continent.

The ETSC’s report, Ranking EU Progress on Car Occupant Safety, comes from an analysis of existing EU data by a panel of 32 European road safety experts and previews proposed new EU legislation expected in 2015.

While the ETSC credited Spain and Latvia for enacting laws and demerit-point systems that made real progress in slashing the road toll, it warned that other European countries had a lot of work to do, especially Poland.

The former Eastern Bloc nation had 11 people killed for each billion vehicle kilometres travelled, while the best countries in the EU were Britain, The Netherlands and Switzerland with around two fatalities per billion kilometres.

The ETSC’s report calls for mandatory seatbelt reminders for every seat in every car, plus tougher enforcement of drink-driving laws on a continent where beer, wine and hard spirits are regularly served with lunch at highway petrol stations.

“It is simply wrong that 12,000 people still die every year for reasons that are mostly avoidable,” ETSC executive director Antonio Avenoso said.

Calling on the EU to mandate alcohol interlocks for repeat drink-driving offenders, the ETSC claimed the elimination of drink driving in Europe would save 5600 lives a year.

It has been mandatory for all passengers to wear seatbelts in Europe since 1991, but the law’s enforcement varies from country to country. On average, the ETSC estimated only 88 percent of front-seat passengers wear seatbelts, while that falls to just 74 percent for rear-seat occupants.

The report estimated almost 9000 people survived severe crashes in 2012 because they were wearing seatbelts and called for mandatory seatbelt warning chimes for all occupied seats.

“Simple measures, like seatbelt reminders in front and rear passenger seats, better enforcement of speed limits and measures to prevent drink drivers from getting behind the wheel could put the EU’s target of halving the number of road deaths by 2020 firmly within reach,” Avenoso lobbied.

“Huge progress has been made in cutting the number of people killed in cars on Europe’s roads,” Avenoso admitted. He also insisted it was impossible to accurately assess how many lives were saved by improved occupant protection like side airbags, but said it was “clearly many thousands”.

As in most countries, the most at-risk category was young men between 20 and 25 years old, with men accounting for more than two-thirds of Europe’s 2012 fatalities.