French road safety improves

Road safety improved in France during 2018, compared with 2017. There were 3,488 road fatalities recorded in France during 2018, a drop of 5.3% compared with the previous year. This comes in spite of a gradual increase in traffic volumes in France, up 7% from 2013 for example. The data comes from the official body, 6081 Sécurité Routière. According to Sécurité Routière, the reduction in speed limits on France’s secondary road network has had a key benefit to overall road safety. The highest risk roads in France are rural routes, accounting for 62% of crashes involving fatalities. Of these fatal crashes, up to 90% are on roads without a central reservation and Sécurité Routière’s data suggests that excessive speed is a key factor in road deaths.