Major road safety improvement identified in Northern Germany

A series of measures carried out in Northern Germany have had a notable effect on improving road safety. The latest data available reveals that in 2012, the number of people killed in road crashes dropped by 17% compared with the previous year for the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Tougher police enforcement on speeding is reckoned to be a major factor in reducing North Rhine-Westphalia’s road fatality rate to 526, compared with 634 in 2011. The police data shows that the tougher enforcement of speeding reduced those deaths by 32%, leading to 76 fewer deaths than in the previous year. On a similar note, the number of seriously injured people fell by 1,197 to 12,678 (a drop of 8.6 %). And this is 4.1 % less than the previous year. In 2012, 574,151 collisions occurred, a reduction of 0.8 %. Another issue that will now be tackled is with the increase in accidents amongst vulnerable road users and the police will analyse why the number of fatal accidents amongst cyclists increased by 17% during 2012 compared with 2011.