It’s well-known: trains that arrive on time do not make headlines, and progress on road safety even less. Yet, while traffic has tripled in thirty years, “the number of people killed on the roads of the European Union has dropped by more than half, from 54,900 in 2001 to 25,300 in 2017,” says the Association. European car manufacturers (ACEA).
As for the fleet of passenger cars in circulation, it increased by nearly 30%, from 200 million to 259.7 million vehicles.
The good results of Europe
If all mobility stakeholders agree that the accidentology needs to be further reduced or even aim for a zero mortality rate, the European Union does not have to blush international comparisons: with 49 deaths per million d inhabitants per year while the world average is 174 deaths, it has the safest roads in the world.
In detail, Romania and Bulgaria are the worst road users in the twenty-eight class, with respective rates of 98 and 96 deaths per million inhabitants. France with a rate of 53 is slightly above the average (49) but far from Sweden (25), the United Kingdom (27), the Netherlands (31) or Denmark (32). see this chart ).
“Human errors (distraction, poor anticipation and non-compliance with traffic rules …) are responsible for 90% of accidents,” says ACEA. This means that it is necessary to operate several levers at the same time to improve the balance sheet: improved driver behavior, advanced technologies on vehicles, better application traffic rules and optimal maintenance of the road network.
A R & D budget of 54 billion a year
For their part, car manufacturers will continue to play on two major components: first, active safety systems (ABS anti-lock braking, electronic stability control, lane departure warning …); who avoid or mitigate the impact of an accident before it occurs; secondly, passive safety systems (prestressed seat belts, airbags, energy-absorbing “deformation zones”, etc.), which mitigate the consequences during and after the collision in order to protect the occupants of the vehicle and other road users .
“Together, these devices have dramatically reduced the number of accidents and injuries in recent decades,” says ACEA.
But the fight continues. European manufacturers already devote a large part of the € 54 billion of their annual R & D budget to making passenger cars and commercial vehicles even safer.