Regions in Portugal, Greece, and Romania reported the highest fatality rates. While EU-wide road deaths rose by about 9% between 2020 and 2022, the long-term trend offers hope.
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Road accidents across the EU claimed 20,653 lives in 2022, according to the latest Eurostat data, which includes drivers, passengers, and pedestrians.
The number of deaths has increased over the past two years, with a 9% rise between 2020 and 2022, and a 3.6% increase from 2021 to 2022.
The EU regions with the highest fatality rates per million inhabitants were Alentejo in Portugal (149), Greece's southern Aegean (131) and Ionian Islands (127), and Romania's southwest Oltenia (123).
Urban and capital regions generally reported much lower road fatality rates, particularly the capital regions of Stockholm (7), Vienna, and Berlin (both 9), says Eurostat.
However, the long-term trend looks more hopeful.
Over the last decade (2012-2022), the number of road fatalities decreased in more than four out of five regions in the EU.
The sharpest decline was in the Swedish region of Norra Mellansverige (-62.9%), with Poland's Malopolskie and Austria's Salzburg regions also seeing reductions of over 60%.
On the other hand, death rates went up in 37 EU regions.
Cantabria, in Spain, Severen Tzentralen (Bulgaria), the North Aegean region (Greece), Portugal's Azores and Malta all reported a rise in road fatalities by at least 50% over the past decade.