Roads in Dublin and Midlands among safest in the EU
Safe Dublin, Than Is Midlands The Less And Picture File Statistically The West Munster
Ireland as a whole is below the European average when it comes to deaths on the road, but Munster is less safe statistically than Dublin, the Midlands and the west of the country.
Those are some of the findings from Eurostat's latest data on road deaths across the EU, which found that Province Luxembourg in southern Belgium and the Portuguese island of Madeira were the most dangerous when it came to fatalities.
The data analysis wing of the European Commission found that while roads in the bloc were among the safest in the world, there were still 52 road fatalities per million inhabitants in the year before the Covid-19 pandemic began.
Roads around Dublin and the Midlands were among the safest in the EU, falling into the lowest bracket at 19 deaths per one million, while Connacht and Ulster counties such as Donegal were at 32 per million. Munster was at 40 per million in 2019.
According to Road Safety Authority figures this month, more than 24,600 people have died on Irish roads since it began recording fatalities in 1959. Since 1977, when injury records began, almost 85,000 have been seriously injured.
Its figures last week up to mid-November showed that 119 people have been killed on Irish roads this year, a decrease of 13 compared to the same period in 2020.
Overall across Europe, the highest rates were recorded in Province Luxembourg in Belgium with 171 road fatalities per million, Região Autónoma da Madeira at 165, and Alentejo in Portugal at 156.
The safest roads in the EU are to be found in Austria, Sweden, and Germany. The lowest incidence rates were recorded in Vienna at just six per one million, Stockholm at nine, and Berlin at 11.
Eurostat said there had been a marked reduction in road fatalities in the last decade.
"Between 2009 and 2019, the incidence rate for road fatalities in the EU fell by almost one third.
"The most rapid declines were recorded in Ciudad de Melilla in Spain (-100%), while two regions in Greece, Vienna, Västsverige in Sweden, and Luxembourg also recorded falls of more than 60%."
By contrast, Eurostat said, there were 19 regions across the EU where the incidence rate for road fatalities increased during those years.
The data are calculated by counting people involved in a road accident who were not killed immediately and did not die within 30 days, but who sustained an injury that required medical treatment. When it comes to injuries, some 1.22 million were counted in 2019.
The highest numbers of road injuries were recorded in some of the most populous regions of the EU, Eurostat said, such as Lombardy and Lazio in Italy, Cataluña and Andalucía in Spain, and Oberbayern in Germany.
As well as falling numbers of fatalities, the number of injuries in the EU fell by more than 11.5% between 2009 and 2019, the data show.