Spain Registers Second-Lowest Road Death Toll On Record For 2021
Spain News
Published: 07 January 2022 17:11 CET
Spain’s traffic authority the DGT has in recent years made a concerted effort in its attempt to reduce the number of deaths on Spanish roads.
On Friday, January 7, the authority announced its preliminary figures for 2021, which show that the second-lowest number of deaths were registered on Spain’s roads compared to 2019.
The reference year of 2019 was used instead of 2020, as there were mobility restrictions in force due to the global Covid-19 pandemic which would distort the numbers.
In 2021, there were 921 fatal accidents on Spanish roads which resulted in 1,004 people losing their lives. There were a total of 97 fewer deaths, representing a drop of 9% in comparison to 2019.
38% or 383 of those killed were considered to be vulnerable users, which includes pedestrians (110), cyclists (31), motorcyclists (241) and users of personal mobility vehicles (1).
The number of people seriously injured also saw a reduction down from 4,433 to 3,728, a fall of 16% compared to 2019.
Even though mobility was much reduced in 2020 due to Covid restrictions, there were still 874 registered fatalities.
It is worth noting that the statistics also show that mobility was down 8% between 2021 and 2019 with a total of 393.7 million long-distance journeys compared to 427 million in 2019.
Over the past decade, the number of deaths on Spanish roads has fallen significantly. In 2011, there were 1,484 fatalities.
Despite the significant drop, Spain’s Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska still believes that more can be done to reduce the death toll and make Spanish roads even safer.
“The balance of road accidents in 2021 indicates that we have maintained the positive trend of reduction in accidents that we have experienced in the last decade, but we must add that the assessment cannot be positive because 1,004 deaths on the road last year are too many,” he said.
Fatalities by age group
By age group, the greatest fall was in those over the age of 65 which saw a 25% reduction. Sadly the same cannot be said for those between 15 and 24 years of age which increased from 112 deaths in 2019 to 138 in 2021.
Safety devices are still not being used by many
What was extremely worrying was 140 (26%) of those killed in cars or vans were not wearing a seatbelt. Eight cyclists and 10 motorists were also found to have not been using a safety helmet.
Fatalities by autonomous community
Data from the DGT shows that the majority of Spain’s autonomous communities saw a reduction in deaths, except for Castilla La Mancha (+17), Illes Balears (+10); Andalusia (+12); Cantabria (+4) and Comunidad Foral de Navarra (+3).
Catalonia (-40) and the Community of Madrid (-25) were the regions that registered the greatest reductions.
Source
https://www.dgt.es/comunicacion/notas-de-prensa/los-accidentes-de-trafico-se-cobraron-la-vida-de-1.004-personas-el-pasado-ano/
