Among EU member states, Cyprus and Luxembourg had the lowest number of cyclists killed in road accidents in recent years, according to figures for 2017 released by Eurostat on Tuesday.
The highest rate is in Romania (10 deaths per million inhabitants) and the lowest rate is zero, recorded in Cyprus (2016 data) and Luxembourg. The EU average was 4 per million inhabitants.
The number of fatalities recorded in road traffic accidents in the EU is estimated to be around 25,000 in 2017, corresponding to 50 fatal accidents per million inhabitants. The annual number of deaths on EU roads has been around 25,000 since 2013, after a steady decline from 43,000 in 2007. In Cyprus, the numbers have also declined over the years, from 83 in 2008 to 53 in 2017.
Passenger car deaths accounted for almost half (46 per cent) of all fatal road accidents in 2017, followed by deaths of pedestrians (21 per cent), motorcyclists (15 per cent), bicyclists (8 per cent) and deaths involving other forms of road transport (10 per cent).
In the EU member states, Bulgaria ranks highest in the passenger car category with 64 deaths per million inhabitants (2016 data), which is almost six times the lowest rate, that of Malta (11, also 2016 data).
The rate of deaths among pedestrians in road traffic accidents is highest in Romania (37 deaths per million inhabitants) and lowest in Denmark (3).
Greece had the highest rate of fatalities in relation to motorcycle accidents (20 deaths per million inhabitants) in 2017. This contrasts with the situation in Bulgaria (2016 data) and Estonia, where the rate is zero.
According to Eurostat, the data have been extracted from the Care database (the Community database on road accidents resulting in death or injury). Care contains detailed data on individual accidents collected by the member states from police and hospital sources.
