Spain, among the 15 countries in the world with the best road safety

Spain is the 14th safest country in the world in terms of road safety, with an annual rate of 3.5 fatalities in traffic accidents per 100,000 inhabitants.

This is stated in the latest report by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the global situation of road safety.

The overall data in that document was released in December 2023, but the WHO recently released disaggregated figures for 172 countries and territories.

The information refers to 2021, which is the last year with consolidated national figures on road safety worldwide. This is the WHO’s fifth global report on this subject, following those of 2009, 2013, 2015 and 2018.

This latest report, compiled by Servimedia, indicates that Spain recorded a rate of 3.5 fatalities in traffic accidents per 100,000 inhabitants in 2021 and was then ranked 14th in the world ranking, three places below the 2018 ranking.

SAFER AND SAFER COUNTRIES IN DRIVING

The small group of 13 countries that have better road mortality rates than Spain are the Maldives (1.3 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants), Norway (1.5), Malta and Singapore (1.9), Sweden (2.1), Denmark (2.3); Iceland, the United Kingdom and Switzerland (2.4); Japan (2.7), Ireland (2.8), Germany (3.3) and the Netherlands (3.4).

In contrast, the 10 most unsafe countries in the world on roads and cities are Guinea (37.4), Libya (34.0), Haiti (31.3), Guinea-Bissau (30.5), Syria and Zimbabwe (29.9), Yemen (29.8), Comoros (29.0) and Kenya and Nepal (28.2).

The WHO report indicates that one person dies every 27 seconds in a traffic accident worldwide, which causes 1.19 million fatalities per year and is the main cause of death among children and young people aged 5 to 29.

Nine out of ten deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, and the risk of dying in a road accident is three times higher in poor nations than in rich ones. 53% of fatalities are vulnerable road users, i.e. pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.