Safety improvements seen on French, German and Portuguese roads

New data from Germany and Portugal reveals continued improvement in road safety, with a reduction in fatality levels for both countries. Final figures from the German Federal Statistics Office, 5143 Destatis, reveal a reduction in road related deaths for 2012. Some 3,600 people died on Germany’s roads in 2012, a 10.2% drop from the previous year. Meanwhile for the first six months of 2013, some 227 people were killed in vehicle crashes in Portugal, a drop of 18% compared with the previous year. This official data comes from Portugal’s National Authority of Road Safety (1409 ANSR), which revealed that in the first six months of 2012 278 people died due to road crashes. The data also shows that the number of people seriously injured in road crashes also fell 20% to 799, compared with 996 for the same period in 2012. And according to information from 6081 Sécurité Routière, the number of deaths on French roads in June 2013 was 11% lower than for June 2012. In addition for the first half of 2013, the fatal accident rate on French roads was 15.1% lower than for the same period in 2012, falling to 1,440 compared with 1,697 in the first half of 2012. The French Ministry of the Interior has a target to reduce annual road deaths to 2,000 or less by 2020.