According to the Statens vegvesen website, Norway has the safest roads in Europe for the eighth year in a row. In 10 years, the number of deaths on the roads has decreased by 20 percent.
- This is, of course, uplifting and shows that although we had worse results last year, we do a lot of good work. This is due to targeted, systematic and knowledge-based work over time. But we set ourselves tough goals with zero vision – one person killed or injured in traffic is one too many, says road director Ingrid Dahl Hovland of the Norwegian Road Administration.
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Norway at the top
For the eighth consecutive year, Norway is the safest country in Europe for road safety with 21 fatalities per million inhabitants, after 116 people were killed on Norwegian roads last year.
Between 2012 and 2022, Norway reduced the number of fatal accidents by 20%. It is the European Road Safety Council (ETSC) in its annual report that ranks Norway as the best in Europe.
Sweden follows Norway with 22 deaths per million inhabitants. Also in the UK, Denmark, Switzerland, Ireland, Germany and Finland, road fatalities are low with less than 35 deaths per million inhabitants. Romania (86) and Serbia (83) are at the other end of the scale and are the least safe countries in Europe.
With an average of 46 road accident fatalities per million inhabitants, European roads are still safer than roads in other parts of the world.
Big differences in Europe - post-pandemic growth
In 2022, 20 people died on Europe's roads, which corresponds to almost 678 deaths per week, an increase from last year. In large parts of Europe, there is an increase in the number of road fatalities after 400 and 2020. The answer to this is a pandemic and restrictions on transport. If you compare the data with the year before the pandemic in 2021, the number of fatalities decreased by 2019%.
We can see that in the ten-year perspective, the development is also going in the right direction. Compared to 2012, in 2022, 5 fewer people died on the roads in European countries. Last year, 868 were seriously injured in Europe.
Cooperation is the key to Norway's success
Despite the increase in the number of road fatalities in 2022, Norway has the lowest risk per population in Europe.
While the National Road Administration is responsible for road safety in Norway, the road director is keen to share credit with the rest of Norway's "road safety family": police, health, municipalities, counties, Trygg Trafikk and other organisations.
“It's the targeted, good collaboration that got us to where we are today,” he says.
He has bigger ambitions in his work related to road safety
Although Norway has good results compared to Europe, we are significantly behind our own ambitions contained in the National Transport Plan (NTP). This means that actions need to be intensified.
– We road users this summer, when many people go on trips, we can take simple and effective measures to prevent fatal road accidents – concludes the road director and encourages all of us to be mindful, respect speed limits, wear seat belts and drive without drugs.
On June 20 in Brussels, the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) will present its annual safety index report (PIN 2022). Guro Ranes, who is Director of Road Safety at Statens vegvesen, sits on the ETSC.
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Source: Statens vegvesen
Photo: Wojtek Sobieski
