New data analysis from the International Traffic Safety Data and Analysis Group (IRTAD), a permanent working of the OECD’s International Transport Forum, suggests that between 2000 and 2013 the number of road traffic fatalities decreased by 42 percent on average across 32 OECD member countries. The most significant reductions noted by IRTAD were in Spain, with a 70 percent decrease in traffic fatalities, as well as Portugal with a near 70 percent decrease. Other OECD countries that demonstrated significant reductions in traffic fatalities include Denmark, France, Slovenia, and Lithuania, each showing a decrease of more than 50 percent over the period. However, most non-European OECD countries demonstrated a lower than average reduction in fatalities.
The data comes from the 2015 edition of IRTAD’s Road Safety Annual Report series. The 2015 report provides an overview of road safety performance for 38 OECD member and observer countries. Components of the report include traffic crash and fatality figures, economic costs of traffic crashes, trends in road user behavior, as well as recent policy changes in each country. Find more information, including some proposed explanations to the trends, in the full report available HERE
IRTAD is composed of road safety experts and statisticians from a variety of renowned research institutes, international organizations, national administrations, and other agencies working in road safety. Access IRTAD’s full Road Safety Annual Report series and other reports from the International Transport Forum HERE
