In conjunction with World Day for Safety and Health at Work on April 28, Together for Safer Roads (TSR) released the “Guidelines for Using Technology to Address Road Safety Challenges” Report. This Report is the second in its Advancing Road Safety Best Practices for Companies and Their Fleets series, outlines how to effectively apply safety technologies, like connected vehicles and infrastructure, autonomous vehicles and features, sensors and telematics, and consumer electronics, to fleet operations in order to pave the way to a golden era of road safety.  

According to Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) data, 793 persons were killed in Greece in 2015: 545 drivers, 120 passengers and 128 pedestrians. Male drivers account for 65% of all road fatalities in Greece. Young male drivers aged 15-24 years old account for 15% of all male driver fatalities and older people account for more than 63% of all pedestrian fatalities. The higher accident severity was found in accidents involving older persons (7.6 fatalities per 100 accidents) and younger persons (4.4 fatalities per 100 accidents). 

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has recently published the PIN Flash Report 32 ‘Reducing deaths in Single Vehicle Collisions‘, with the contribution of NTUA. A third of road deaths in the EU are caused by collisions that involve a single motorised vehicle where the driver, rider and/or passengers are killed but no other road users are involved. Several significant key recommendations to Member States and key recommendations to EU Institutions are included in this PIN Flash Report.  

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) released some very interesting infographics including the latest data on road deaths across the European Union and other countries covered by ETSC’s Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) programme. Full analysis and background data tables can be found in the latest annual edition of the ETSC PIN report. 

The International Transport Forum (ITF) launched recently a new visualisation tool for transport indicators, including road fatalities data. The tool makes it possible to compare trends across countries, create rankings or show data on a map.

19 indicators for more than 50 countries cover topics including CO2 emissions, road safety, infrastructure investment, modal shares and the transport network. 

The European Commission has published the most recent road safety statistics, based on provisional data for 2016 road deaths in Europe indicating a drop of 2% in the number of fatalities recorded across the EU last year. 25,500 people lost their lives on EU roads in 2016, 600 fewer than in 2015 and 6,000 fewer than in 2010. A further 135,000 people were seriously injured on the road according to Commission’s estimates. Following two years of stagnation, 2016 marks the return of a positive downwards trend and over the last six years, road fatalities have been cut by 19%. While this pace is encouraging, it may nevertheless be insufficient if the EU is to meet its target of halving road fatalities between 2010 and 2020, as said by Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc. 

This World Health Organisation (WHO) published the new Country Profiles from the “Global status report on road safety 2015” for 52 of 53 Member States in the WHO European Region. It is a companion to the regional data presented in “European facts and the global status report on road safety 2015”; the global status report adds a country-level perspective to allow individual countries to assess their own status with regard to road traffic fatality and policy indicators, to examine the comprehensiveness of legislation on established behavioural risk factors of speeding, drink–driving, and not using motorcycle helmets, seat-belts and child car restraints, to assess road safety audits, policies on mobility and vehicle safety standards and to take stock of progress towards achieving road safety for all road users.  

Road fatalities in Greece in 2016 presented an increase (1%) for the first time since 2004, ending an impressive road fatalities drop during the economic crisis of almost 50%, as highlighted at the comprehensive statistics table based on recently published ELSTAT data.

During the last five years, road fatalities in Greece have decreased by 29% (since 2011), however injury road accidents decreased only by 17%. The rate fatalities per number of vehicles has decreased by 30% since 2011. 

Basic characteristics of road fatalities in Greece for the period 1991-2015 are summarised in a comprehensive Table prepared by the NTUA Road Safety Observatory (data source: ELSTAT). Since 2005, there are approximately 1.000 less road fatalities per year in Greece. According to these time series data a spectacular decrease in road fatalities for young people (68%) and children (86%) is observed during the last decade, as well in fatalities outside urban areas, especially when raining and in accidents with heavy goods vehicles. On the contrary, fatalities decrease during the last decade is quite limited for motorcyclists and cyclists, older drivers, men drivers, single vehicle accidents, as well as in junctions outside built-up areas. 

European Commission recently launched Traffic Safety Synthesis 2016, prepared by European Road Safety Observatory (ERSO), with the active contribution of NTUA. The European Road Safety Observatory (ERSO) gathers harmonised specialist information on road safety practices and policy in European countries. Evidenced-based approaches lie at the heart of the most successful road safety polices – backed up by accident and other road safety data. ERSO collects a range of information types including a series of data protocols and collection methodologies, national and in-depth accident data, exposure data and safety performance indicators. ERSO was developed by the SafetyNet project and was later updated and expanded by the DaCoTA project. Current updates are managed by the EU’s Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport. 

The Traffic Safety Synthesis 2016 includes 22 key traffic safety topics:

•  Advanced driver assistance systems
•  Alcohol
•  Cell phone use while driving
•  Children
•  Cost Benefit Analysis
•  Driver Distraction
•  Fatigue
•  Integration of Road Safety in Other Policy Areas: Synergies and Conflicts
•  Novice Drivers
•  Older Drivers
•  Pedestrians and Cyclists
•  Post-impact care
•  Power two wheelers
•  Quantitative Road Safety Targets
•  Roads
•  Road Safety Management
•  Safety Ratings
•  Serious Injuries
•  Speed and Speed Management
•  Speed Enforcement
•  Vehicle Safety
•  Work-related

The European Commission has published a leaflet demonstrating the road safety situation at the end of 2015 and the progress made since 2010 in the EU countries. The target of the EU was to halve the number of road fatalities on European roads by 2020. The purpose of this leaflet is to allow Member States and European citizens to compare their situation and to encourage them to continue their efforts regarding road safety. 

It is the first time that comparative figures on serious injuries and hospitalised casualties are published in Europe, exploiting the new harmonised definition based on MAIS3+.

Since 52 years, the  International Road Federation (IRF) World Road Statistics (WRS) continue to be the major comprehensive, universal source of statistical data on road networks, traffic and inland transport. Over the past years, the WRS have proved to be an invaluable and internationally accepted reference tool for governments, NGOs, investments banks, research institutes and anyone analyzing and reporting trends in key subject areas like traffic volumes and vehicle usage, road expenditure, road safety, energy consumption and emissions. 

This year, the WRS 2016 (data 2009-2014) features more than 200 countries, with data on over 45 road related topics, presented in nine substantive sections, with the active contribution of NTUA for the Greek data. This is a tremendous achievement that complements the work accomplished last years with the 2015, 2014 and 50th Anniversary Editions.

The European Commission recently set out a range of advanced safety measures that could be fitted to vehicles in the future and have the potential to save lives on the roads. These measures will be examined in detail to decide exactly how the vehicles of tomorrow will be made safer. The report presents workable and cost-effective car safety measures. The main objectives are to decrease the number of road victims and to help prevent accidents. As vulnerable road users, special attention was given to children and the elderly.  

The European Commission has published the 2016 edition of the EU Transport Scoreboard , a benchmark which compares how Member States perform in 30 categories covering all aspects of transport , including road safety . The objective of the Scoreboard is to assist EU Member States to identify areas requiring priority investment and action and demonstrates how the EU further deepens the internal market in transport.

“Road Statitics Yearbook 2016” has been released by the European Union Road Federation (ERF). As for many years, this publication provides the road community with essential information on the road transport sector and remains a reference for all policy makers and major stakeholders. The publication features a range of interesting figures concerning the road network in Europe from the length of motorways to funding, past and on-going, as well as key figures on road safety. According to ERF, under-investment in roads, especially the past years of the financial crisis, represents a threat in the social and economic development of the EU member states and ERF aims to assist stakeholders through this publication to better plan future solutions and actions.  

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has published the PIN Annual Report at the tenth edition of PIN Annual Conference on 20 June 2016, in Brussels. 2015 was the second consecutive poor year for road safety, 26,300 people lost their lives on EU roads in 2015 compared to 25,970 in 2014, representing an increase of 1%. Out of the 32 countries monitored by the PIN Programme, as many as 22 saw an increase in the number of road deaths between 2014 and 2015. Across the EU28, road deaths were cut by 17% between 2010 and 2015, equivalent to a 3.6% average annual reduction. A 6.7% year-to-year reduction is needed over the 2010-2020 period to reach the target through constant progress in annual percentage terms. Yet the increase in 2015 means that the number of road deaths has to be reduced at a much faster average pace of about 9.7% each year between 2016 and 2020 for the EU to be on track for the target.

NTUA contributed actively to this ETSC PIN Annual Report.   

The European Commission has published the most recent statistics on road fatalities, based on provisional data for 2015 road deaths in Europe, confirming that European roads remain the safest in the world despite a recent slowdown in reducing road fatalities. 26.000 people lost their lives on EU roads last year, 5.500 fewer than in 2010. There is however no improvement at EU level compared to 2014.

In addition, the Commission estimates that 135.000 people were seriously injured on EU roads. The social cost (rehabilitation, healthcare, material damages, etc.) of road fatalities and injuries is estimated to be of at least €100 billion. The country-specific statistics reveal that the number of road fatalities still varies greatly across the EU, though this gap is becoming smaller every year. It is the first time ever that all EU countries present a rate of fatalities per million population of less than 100.

Basic characteristics of road fatalities in Greece for the period 1991 – 2014 are summarised in a comprehensive Table (data source: ELSTAT). Since 2001, there are more than 1.000 less road fatalities per year in Greece. According to these time series data a spectacular decrease (more than 60%) in road fatalities for young people and children is observed during the last decade, as well in fatalities outside urban areas, especially in junctions and in in accidents with heavy goods vehicles. On the contrary, fatalities decrease during the last decade is quite limited for motorcyclists and cyclists, older drivers, women drivers and non resident riders, as well as in junctions inside urban areas. 

According to provisional data from the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT), the number of road fatalities in 2015 shows a slight annual increase of 1,3%, whereas injury accidents show a slight decrease of -1.1%. This road fatalities increase is observed for the first time since 2004, ending an impressive 49% road fatalities decrease in the economic crisis period 2008-2014 (-23% in injury accidents).

Greece has reached a point where there is great need for extra effort to further improve road safety in the Greek roads, with systematic actions from the Authorities and serious engagement from the society despite the continuous economic and social crisis in Greece. 

According to the ELSTAT final road accidents data for 2014 in Greece, 34% of road fatalities are passenger car occupants, whereas 38% of road fatalities are power two wheelers. Most car occupant fatalities occur outside built-up areas while most motorcycle and pedestrian fatalities occur inside built-up areas. Accident severity is higher outside built-up areas for all transport modes. 

According to ELSTAT data, most fatalities occur at daytime and at night with good street lighting inside built-up area, or with no street lighting outside built-up area. Accident severity is increased at night with no street lighting or poor street lighting. 

According to ELSTAT data, among the 795 persons killed in Greece in 2014: 415 were outside built-up areas and 401 were inside built-up areas. 59% of road fatalities outside built-up area occurred on national roads. More than 80% of road accidents and half of fatalities occurred inside built-up areas. However,accident severity is almost 5 times higher outside built-up areas in total. 

According to ELSTAT data, 795 persons were killed in Greece in 2014: 539 drivers, 130 passengers and 125 pedestrians. Male drivers account for 64% of all road fatalities in Greece. Young male drivers aged 15-24 years old account for 17% of male driver fatalities and older people account for more than 50% of pedestrian fatalities. The higher accident severity was found in accidents involving older persons (7 fatalities per 100 accidents) and younger persons (4.6 fatalities per 100 accidents). 

According to ELSTAT final road accidents data for 2014, collisions with stopped vehicle and when running off the road are the two most common accident types outside built-up areas. At angle collisions, pedestrian accidents, come off the road and collisions with stopped vehicle are the most common accident types inside built-up areas. Accident severity is more than 5 times higher outside built-up areas and 8 times higher at pedestrian accidents.

A comprehensive Overview of Road Safety in Greece 2015has been recently published at the European Road Safety Observatory (ERSO) of the DG Move Road Safety Unit of the European Commission, with the active contribution of NTUA, KFVand ERF. This Overview is part of the 2015 Edition of the EU Road Safety Country Overviews recently published at ERSO, based on most recent disaggregate data from the CARE Database as well as on structured information gathered from the EU Member States.

At this Overview a comprehensive picture of Road Safety in Greece is provided covering the road safety structure and culture, the related measures and programmes, some safety performance indicators, the road casualties figures and the related social costs. From this Overview, the impressive road fatalities decrease of almost 50% since 2009 is clearly depicted, together with all the strengths and weakness for the further improvement of road safety in Greece. 

EUROSTAT is now publishing road accident statistics using CARE data base as data source. The user can exploit the user friendly on-line EUROSTAT database and have also the EUROSTAT transport accident statistics explained.

According to Eurostat statistics on the causes of death, the number of people in the European Union (EU) who died as a result of transport accidents (covering all transport modes) fell by 40.8 % for men and 43.8 % for women between 2004 and 2012, accounting for 0.6 % of total deaths in 2012.  

The World Health Organization (WHO) released the Global Status Report on Road Safety 2015, which highlights that road traffic injuries are a major global health and development problem. This Status Report presents information on road safety from 180 countries out of a total of 195 WHO Member States, covering 6.97  billion people or 97% of the world’s population. It indicates that worldwide the total number of road traffic deaths has plateaued at 1.25 million per year, with the highest road traffic fatality rates in low-income countries.

NTUA has contributed actively to the country profile of Greece.

The Road Safety Unit of DG Move of the European Commission published recently the 2015 Edition of the EU Annual Road Accidents Report and the respective Infographics with the active contribution of NTUA, KFV and ERF. The EU Annual Road Accidents Report is based on most recent disaggregate data for all EU countries from the CARE Database of the European Commission and consist of summary and cross-country comparative tables, figures and maps on key road safety topics for which data comparable across the EU counties are available.

The Road Safety Unit of DG Move of the European Commission published recently the Traffic Safety Basic Facts and the respective Infographics for key road safety issues in Europe, with the active contribution of NTUA, KFV and ERF. The EU Traffic Safety Basic Facts are based on most recent disaggregate data for all EU countries from the CARE  Database of the European Commission and concern several key road safety issues like road users safety (Children, Young people, Young drivers, Elderly, Pedestrians, Cyclists, Gender), vehicle traffic safety (Motorcycles and mopeds, Passenger cars, Heavy goods vehicles and buses), road infrastructure safety (Motorways, Junctions, Urban areas, Roads outside urban areas) and accident type (Single vehicle accidents, Seasonality).

According to the ELSTAT final road accidents data for 2013 in Greece, 34% of road fatalities are power two wheelers, whereas 39% of road fatalities are passenger car occupants. Most car occupant fatalities occur outside built-up areas while most motorcycle and pedestrian fatalities occur inside built-up areas. Accident severity is higher outside built-up areas for all transport modes.  

According to ELSTAT data, the majority of road accidents and fatalities occur during clear sky, both inside and outside built-up area. Accident severity is higher outside built up areas. 

According to ELSTAT data, most fatalities occur at daytime and at night with good street lighting inside built-up area, or with no street lighting outside built-up area. Accident severity is increased at night with no street lighting or poor street lighting. 

According to the ELSTAT final road accidents data for 2013, collisions with stopped vehicle and when running off the road are the two most common accident types outside built-up areas. At angle collisions and pedestrian accidents, side impact and rear end collisions are the most common accident types inside built-up areas. Accident severity is more than 4 times higher outside built-up areas. 

According to ELSTAT data, among the 879 persons killed in Greece in 2013: 415 were outside built-up areas and 464 were inside built-up areas. 54% of road fatalities outside built-up area occurred on national roads. More than three quarters of road accidents and half of fatalities occurred inside built-up areas. However, accident severity is almost 4 times higher outside built-up areas in total. 

According to ELSTAT data, 879 persons were killed in Greece in 2013: 582 drivers, 146 passengers and 151 pedestrians. Male drivers account for 66% of all road fatalities in Greece. Young male drivers account for almost 50% of male driver fatalities and older people account for almost 50% of pedestrian fatalities. The higher accident severity was found in accidents involving older persons (8.7 fatalities per 100 accidents) and younger persons (4,5 fatalities per 100 accidents). 

Basic characteristics of road fatalities in Greece for the period 1991 – 2013 are summarised in a comprehensive Table (data source: ELSTAT). Since 2001, there are more than 1.000 less road fatalities per year in Greece. According to these time series data a spectacular decrease (more than 60%) in road fatalities for young people and children is observed during the last decade, as well in fatalities outside urban areas, especially in junctions, when raining and in in accidents with heavy goods vehicles. On the contrary, fatalities decrease during the last decade is quite limited for motorcyclists and cyclists, older drivers, women drivers and non resident riders, as well as in junctions inside urban areas. 

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has recently released the PIN Annual Report at the PIN Annual Conference on June 18th, 2015 in Brussels. In 2014, the worst annual reduction in EU road deaths since 2001 was observed.25,845 people were killed in the EU28 as a consequence of road collisions compared to 26,009 in 2013, representing a decrease of only 0.6%, compared with the decrease of 6.7% that is needed to reach the target for 2020 by equal annual reductions. Out of the 32 countries monitored by the PIN Programme, only 18 registered a drop in the number of road deaths between 2013 and 2014, 13 saw an increase while progress stagnated inone country.  At this ETSC PIN Annual Report, it was also highlighted what the EU and member states need to do to get progress back on track to reach the EU’s 2020 road fatalities’ reduction targets. NTUA contributed actively to this ETSC PIN Annual Report. 

According to provisional data from the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT), the number of road fatalities in 2014 continued to decrease significantly (-10%), whereas serious injuries decreased by 17%.  Road fatalities in Greece have decreased by an impressive 46% since 2009, whereas injury road accidents decreased by 21%.

The rate fatalities per number of vehicles (72 fatalities per million inhabitants) has also decreased in the same period by 46% making Greece to advance several steps among the EU countries, getting for the first time closer to the EU average (52) than to the least performing EU countries (90-105). This impressive decrease can be attributed to the joint effect of: a) more systematic initiatives from the Authorities (intensification of enforcement, construction and upgrade of 2.500 km of motorways, urban mobility plans) and several stakeholders (new vehicles, campaigns, training and monitoring) and b) the deep economic crisis, which brought new traffic patterns (less veh-kms, less risky drivers) and less speedy and aggressive driver behaviour. 

Ten countries have a better performance than the EU average.Greece is ranked 21st in 2013. Spain reached more than 70% reduction of the rate fatalities per population for the period 2002-2013. 

Car drivers are the largest road user group among road fatalities in all EU-23 countries. Together with car passengers they account for 46% of all fatalities. 

In EU-23, only 7% of road fatalities occurred in motorways. 55% of road fatalities occurred on non motorway rural roads. In Greece, more road fatalities occurred on urban than rural roads. 

Far more males than females are killed in road accidents in all EU-23 countries. Most road fatalities are within the 64+ age group. 

Road fatalities have decreased by more than 50% during the period 2002-2013, leading to 27.894 less road fatalities (2013) in comparison to 2002. Six countries ( ES, LV, SK, EE, LT,  PT) have reached reduction of more than 60% for the period 2001-2013. The performance of Greece in fatalities reduction is ranked 20th. 

According to ELSTAT data, come off the road and at angle collisions are the most common accident types outside built-up areas. At angle collisions and pedestrian accidents, side impact and rear end collisions are the most common accident types inside built-up areas. Accident severity is more than 4 times higher outside built-up areas and almost 5 time higher at head-on collisions or when a pedestrian is involved. 

According to ELSTAT data, among the 988 persons killed in Greece in 2012: 489 were outside built-up areas and 499 were inside built-up areas. 52% of road fatalities outside built-up area occurred on national roads. More than three quarters of road accidents and half of fatalities occurred inside built-up areas. However, accident severity is more than 4 times higher outside built-up areas in total. 

According to ELSTAT data, 988 persons were killed in Greece: 651 drivers, 167 passengers and 170 pedestrians.  Male drivers account for 66% of all road fatalities in Greece. Young male drivers account for almost 50% of male driver fatalities and older people account for almost 50% of pedestrian fatalities. The higher accident severity was found in accidents involving older persons (7,6 fatalities per 100 accidents) and younger persons (4,0 fatalities per 100 accidents). 

Basic characteristics of road fatalities in Greece for the period 1991 – 2012 are summarised in a comprehensive Table (data source: ELSTAT). Since 2001, there are more than 1.000 less road fatalities per year in Greece. According to these time series data an important decrease in road fatalities for young people is observed during the last decade, as well as a spectacular decrease in fatalities outside urban areas and in the number of people killed in accidents with Heavy Goods Vehicles. On the contrary fatalities decrease during the last decade is limited for people killed in motorways, non resident drivers and women drivers. 

According to the ELSTAT provisional data for 2013, road fatalities in Greece have decreased by 40% since 2009 , whereas serious injuries decreased by 22%. The rate fatalities per number of vehicles has decreased the same period by 42%. The recent deep economic crisis is a major factor which might explain this significant decrease in road fatalities in Greece. 

The Directorate General for Mobility and Transport (DG Move) of the European Commission released the Statistical Pocketbook 2014 ‘EU Transport in figures‘. In this Statistical Pocketbook, key road safety Tables are contained, together with several other Tables on transport statistics, providing a complete picture of current trends in transport in Europe. Data on road fatalities for the EU member states and associate countries allow for time series comparisons and country rankings. 

The Global Road Safety Partnership Annual Report has recently been published. The report summarises in brief the actions taken by the Global Road Safety Partnership during the year 2013 to encourage and to increase road safety efforts within the framework of the Decade of Action and to build and share knowledge to achieve a reduction in road crash death and injury; and also demonstrates that national and global improvement is achievable. 

A new application ‘The Road Safety Atlas‘ has  been recently released by the Road Safety Unit of the European Commission, exploiting data from the CARE database, the EU database with disaggregate data. It is an application openly available with several detailed thematic maps on road fatalities and extended backround data available, including statistics per country and comparisons between countries. The application is available on desktop computers, laptop, mobile phones and tablets.  

The United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development has recently included road safety in the “Zero Draft” which proposed goals and targets on Sustainable Development for the Post 2015 Developemnet Agenda. At the proposed goal 11 on building inclusive, safe and sustainable cities and human settlements, a specific road safety goal is set: to provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport for all and to expand public transport and improve road safety, with specific target to half the number of road fatalities by 2030. 

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has launched recently the PIN Annual Report at the PIN Annual Conference on June 18th, 2014 in Brussels. There were 9.800 fewer road deaths in the EU in 2011-2013 than in three years before in 2010, demonstrating that the European Union is almost on track to reach the 2020 target. Slovakia (-37%) tops the ranking for reduction in road deaths between 2010 and 2013, followed by Spain, Greece and Portugal with reductions of more than 30%. Across the EU28 road deaths have been cut by 18% between 2010 and 2013, equivalent to a 6.2% average annual reduction. The EU target for 2020 is therefore reachable if combined efforts at both national and EU level are stepped up. 

However, there is a clearly slower progress in reducing serious injuries on EU roads. George Yannis, NTUA Associate Professor, stated that “The difference in progress might be attributed to several factors which have a more important impact on deaths than on serious injuries, such as improved vehicle passive safety, speed management and better driver behaviour (leading to less injury accidents but many less deaths) and the improved post accident care systems across the EU.”

The DEKRA Vision Zero is an interactive map showing European cities and towns that achieve a total zero in road fatalities. An assessment of the accident statistics for 17 European countries from 2009 to 2012 by DEKRA Accident Research shows that a total of 462 towns and cities with over 50,000 inhabitants achieved a total of zero at least once in this period. The interactive map shows not only the 17 countries originally examined but is constantly being expanded and updated using further data as it becomes available. 

Three towns in Greece are among these 462 European cities with zero fatalities: Kalamaria and Neapoli-Sykies (Thessaloniki suburbs) and Zografou (Athens suburbs).

The European Commission has published for the first time a scoreboard on transport in the EU. It compares Member State performance in 22 transport-related categories and highlights for most of these categories the five top and bottom performers. The Netherlands and Germany top the scoreboard with high scores in 11 categories, followed by Sweden, the UK and Denmark. The aim of this first EU Transport Scoreboard is to give a snapshot of the diversity of Member State performance in transport matters across Europe and to help Member States identify shortcomings and define priorities for investment and policies.

Road fatalities indicators can be compared with all other transport indicators of all EU countries. 

Transport infographics on how EU policy has evolved in the last 5 years is now available by the European Commission. The key points are:

– 10 Passenger rights however you travel  

A Report on Transport for Health was recently published by theWorld Bank and the Institute for health metrics and evaluation. This Report contains data and analysis to quantify the health losses from road deaths and injuries worldwide, as part of the path-finding Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study. The Report’s findings highlight the growth in road deaths and injuries globally, and their substantial impacts on maternal and child health, despite sustained reductions over the last three to four decades in high-income countries. This Transport for Health Report further reinforces the call for global action. 

The Directorate General for Mobility and Transport (DG Move) of the European Commission released the Statistical Pocketbook 2013 ‘EU Transport in figures‘. In this Statistical Pocketbook, key road safety Tables are contained, together with several other Tables on transport statistics, providing a complete picture of current trends in transport in Europe. Data on road fatalities for the EU member states and associate countries allow for time series comparisons and country rankings. 

The 2012 Edition of the EU Road Safety Basic Fact Sheets is now available at the DaCoTA Road Safety Knowledge System as developed through a common methodology by the EU co-funded research projects DaCoTA and SafetyNet, within the framework of developing and enhancing the European Road Safety Observatory. The EU Road Safety Basic Fact Sheets are based on data from the CARE Database and consist of summary and cross-country comparative tables, figures and maps on key road safety topics for which data are available.

The EU Road Safety Basic Fact Sheets cover the following topics:

– Road user and vehicle: Children (aged <15), Youngsters (aged 15-17), Young people (aged 18-24),Elderly (aged >64), Pedestrians, Cyclists, Motorcycles and mopeds, Car occupants, Heavy goods vehicles and buses, Gender.

– Road environment: Motorways, Junctions, Urban areas, Roads outside urban areas,  Seasonality, Single vehicle accidents.

-General: Main figures.

According to the ELSTAT provisional data for 2012, road fatalities in Greece have decreased by 30% since 2009, whereas serious injuries decreased by 17%.

The rate fatalities per number of vehicles has decreased the same period by 31% as the vehicle fleet showed a marginal increase of just 2%. This rate is still high in comparison to the other EU countries, demonstrating the important potential for road casualty decrease in Greece if road safety measures are systematically implemented.

The recent deep economic crisis is a major factor which might explain this significant decrease in road fatalities in Greece. 

The European Commission has published road fatalities statistics based on provisional data for 2012 showing that road fatalities across the EU have decreased by 9% in 2012. According to these statistics, 2012 saw the lowest number of people killed in road traffic in EU countries since the first data were collected.  Country by country statistics show that the number of road deaths still varies greatly across the EU, from around 30 (UK, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark) to more than 90 (Latvia, Romania, Poland and Greece) deaths per million inhabitants. 

In the respective accompanying European Commission Road Safety Vademecum, the basic safety trends, statistics and challenges in the EU 2011-2012 are highlighted. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) released tables with detailed data for specific topics by country/area. 

These tables are part of the statistical annexes of the Global Status Report on Road Safety 2013 and concern:  

– Road traffic deaths and proportion of deaths by road user

The World Health Organization (WHO) released Infographics onkey road safety issues, with data from the Global Status Report on Road Safety 2013. 

These inforgraphics concern:

– road traffic injuries,

– drink-driving,

– speed,

– motorcycle helmets,

– seat belts,

– child restraints.

The World Health Organization (WHO) launched a map basedinteractive tool with the estimated traffic death rate (per 100.000 population) for each country. This tool offers to the user the option to select the estimated traffic death rates by country, by region and for different income levels. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) released the Road Safety Country Profiles 2013.  In these Country Profiles, summary road safety data and information is provided for each of the 182 WHO countries, concering the institutional framework, the safer roads and mobility, the safer vehicles, the safer road users, the basic road safety data and the post-crash care.

At the Road Safety Country Profile for Greece, prepared with contribution from NTUA a comprehensive picture of road safety in Greece is provided.