Road traffic accidents killed 19,934 people across the EU in 2024, down 2.2% from 20,384 in 2023.
It was the second consecutive year in which the number of deaths fell, according to the EU statistics agency Eurostat's release issued on Monday.
Across the bloc, there were 44 road deaths per million inhabitants on average in 2024.
Sweden recorded the lowest rate at 20 deaths per million people, followed by Malta with 21 and Denmark with 24.
Romania had the highest rate at 78 deaths per million inhabitants, followed by Bulgaria at 74 and Greece at 64.
A decade-long fall, with a pandemic dip
The number of people killed in road accidents in the EU fell by 17.4% between 2014 and 2024, Eurostat said.
Over the same period, fatalities rose in 2015 by 0.9%, and in 2021 by 5.8% and 2022 by 3.7% after a low point in 2020 linked to COVID-19 restrictions.
At regional level, the 10 EU regions with the largest number of reported road accidents in 2024 were in Germany, Italy and Spain.
Nordrhein-Westfalen was the only NUTS 1 region — a large EU statistical region — to record more than 60,000 accidents, with 62,741, while Bayern had 49,374 and Italy’s Nord-Ovest recorded 48,815.
