ABSTRACT
This fact sheet presents the status of road safety in the WHO European Region and provides a baseline assessment of how far 51 countries have come in implementing the recommendations of the World report on road traffic injury prevention. It also updates the results of the Euro-pean status report on road safety. In the Region, road crashes annually kill 92 492 people, a 25% decline in the past three years. The burden from nonfatal injury and disability is large, as are the economic costs. Road traffic injuries are still the leading cause of death among people 5–29 years old. Vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists and users of motorized two- and three-wheelers constitute 43% of the people dying from road traffic injury. Countries differ greatly in mortality rates for road traffic injuries; the average in low- and middle-income countries is more than twice as high as in high-income countries. This report analyses the legislative response and policy action of countries on five main risk factors: speed, drink-driving, use of helmets, use of child car restraints and use of seat-belts. Although half the countries have comprehensive legislation on all five risk factors, areas of future priority action have been identified: narrowing the gap between coun-tries with the lowest and highest mortality rates; providing better protection for vulnerable road users; increasing the number of countries with comprehensive legislation and improving the enforcement of existing legislation; improving data collection systems, especially for non-fatal cases; and developing national policies with targets to reach the goals of the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011–2020.
