Belgian roads were safer in the first three months of 2023, according to the Vias Institute for Road Safety. The number of deaths fell by 18% while there was a decade-long low of 7,887 accidents.
Compared to the first three months of last year there were 194 fewer accidents, with a drop in the number of deaths on Belgium roads – falling from 108 to 89 across all Belgian regions other than Brussels.
Among these fatalities, 15 of them were pedestrians compared to 21 in the previous year, while four motorcyclists died in 2023, seven fewer than in 2022.
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Nonetheless, Vias is pleading for caution in light of these figures, stating that on average one road user loses their life every day in Belgium. Moreover, there was a slight increase in the number of cyclist deaths with 11 recorded in the first three months of this year, one more than in 2022.
However, as last year saw the highest figure for fatalities among Belgian cyclists in over ten years, it is concerning that this number went up in the first quarter of 2023.
The institute’s spokesperson Benoît Godart told Belga News Agency that these figures “only represent three months” and “we will have to wait for the second barometer in mid-August to see if this decrease is sustainable.”
