WHO works with countries to ensure safer roads and prevent road traffic injuries by collecting evidence on health impacts and prevention measures, identifying risk factors, and promoting policy action and evidence-based interventions. These efforts have contributed to a 53% reduction in the burden of fatal road traffic injuries between 2000 and 2021, making roads in the European Region the safest of all WHO regions.
Central to this effort is the “safe systems” approach to road safety, which originates in European countries like the Netherlands (Kingdom of the) and Sweden. This approach recognizes that while humans are both fallible and fragile, a combination of safer roads, safer vehicles and safer road users can accommodate driver error and prevent crashes from resulting in injury or loss of life.
Someone killed or seriously injured every 33 seconds
In 2021, someone was killed or seriously injured on the roads of the European Region every 33 seconds, equalling 2620 people a day or 926 000 a year. Road trauma kills more people aged 5–24 than any other cause. Every death is just the tip of the iceberg, with millions more people non-fatally injured to various degrees of severity, many with life-long consequences. Almost 40% of those killed are vulnerable road users – pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.
Despite these levels of trauma, significant progress is being made in the countries of the Region. Between 2010 and 2021, road traffic mortality was reduced by 36%, far outpacing the global reduction of 5%. This success underscores the importance of continued action.
Progress is however uneven across the Region, with a 12-fold difference in road traffic mortality rates between the most experienced countries in western Europe and those in the east of the Region, at a more preliminary stage in prioritizing the prevention of road trauma.
Road traffic injuries are not “accidents” – which is defined as a random, unpredictable and unpreventable event. Injuries have risk factors, predictors and determinants, and are therefore preventable.
WHO/Europe’s action
Road safety is recognized as a key global development priority. It was featured in the Sustainable Development Goals, which called for a 50% reduction in road traffic fatalities by 2020. This commitment continues through the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021–2030, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.
WHO/Europe provides technical support to countries in the Region to develop, implement, monitor and evaluate data-driven and evidence-based actions for road safety.
WHO/Europe also promotes healthy, active mobility through its Transport, Health and Environment Pan-European Programme (THE PEP), which is jointly led by WHO/Europe and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.
