Romania and Bulgaria, the EU states with the highest road fatality rates in 2018

Romania and Bulgaria were the EU Member States with the highest road fatality rates in 2018, according to preliminary figures published by the European Commission (EC).

In fact, Romania and Bulgaria were the only two EU states with a fatality rate higher than 80 deaths per million inhabitants, against seven in 2010. For the majority of Member States, the road fatality rate was below 60 deaths per million inhabitants in 2018.

There were around 96 deaths per million inhabitants in Romania last year, and 88/million in Bulgaria. The rate reported for Romania was 4% lower in 2018 vs. 2017 and 21% lower when compared to 2010, the same data show.

At EU level, there were around 25,100 fatalities in road accidents in 2018, which represents a decrease of 21% compared to 2010, and 1% compared to 2017.

“With an average of 49 road deaths per one million inhabitants, this confirms that European roads are by far the safest in the world. But it also shows we are off track to reach our target of halving the number of road deaths by 2020,” the EC said in the press release announcing the preliminary figures for 2018.

The EU countries with the lowest rates were the United Kingdom (28 deaths/million inhabitants), Denmark (30/million), Ireland (31/million), and Sweden (32/million). The countries with a higher-than-average decrease in road deaths from 2017 to 2018 were Slovenia (-13%), Lithuania (-11%), Bulgaria (-9%) and Slovakia and Cyprus (both -8%).

(Photo source: Inquam Photos / Alexandru Busca)