200,000 car accidents have occurred in Romania in the last 10 years. On average, five people die every day on the roads of Romania, the EU’s leading country in terms of the number of deaths per capita in car accidents, according to an Info Sud-Est and G4media analysis.
The counties with the most fatal accidents in Romania are Suceava, Constanța, Bacău, Dolj and Prahova. At the opposite pole are Covasna, Tulcea, Alba, Harghita and Sălaj, according to information collected from police inspectorates across the country.
Although the number of serious accidents in the country has almost halved over the past decade, the number of fatalities has fallen by just 12%, and Romania remains the country with the most road deaths in the European Union, relative to the population – more than 18,000 deaths in ten years.
With official reports putting Romania at the top of the European list of road deaths and the recent tragedy in the 2 Mai resort of Constanța, where two young people were killed by a 19-year-old driver who had consumed drugs before getting behind the wheel, a new debate about road safety in Romania has begun among the public, politicians and civil society.
Romania not only has one of the highest road fatality rates in Europe, it is also one of the countries that has made the least progress in the last decade, according to ISE analysis based on European Union reports and data submitted by police inspectorates across the country.
At the end of June, the European Union’s statistics office (Eurostat) published a report showing that Romania is the EU country with the highest number of road deaths per capita – 93 per million inhabitants, double the EU average of 45. Eurostat’s conclusion was based on data from a single year, 2021, in which the EU saw an increase in road deaths of almost 6% – the first such increase since 2011.
To put this information in context, the ISE asked the Romanian General Inspectorate of Police for road accident and fatality statistics for the years 2013-2022, and then requested the same information from county police inspectorates for almost every county.
Based on this data, we produced a map of the death roads of Romania:
According to data provided by the authorities, 18,243 people died in car accidents between 2013 and 2022, and the deadliest roads are in the counties: Suceava, with 872 deaths in 10 years, Constanța (727 deaths), Bacău (654), Dolj (627) and Prahova (626).
At the opposite pole, with the fewest deaths in the country, are Covasna (181), Tulcea (190), Alba (216), Harghita (230) and Sălaj (242).
Predictably, the counties with the fewest accidents and fatalities are also among the most sparsely populated in the country. According to the latest census, cited by Radio Free Europe, Covasna, Tulcea and Sălaj counties are among the few with a population of less than 250,000, a status they share only with Mehedinți and Caraș-Severin.
At the other end of the scale are large counties with populations of at least 600,000, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics. These counties have significantly higher numbers of accidents and fatalities, but it should be taken into account that in many cases the death rate relative to the population size of the counties is almost the same.
Constanța and Tulcea, two counties close by geographically, but on opposite sides of the hierarchy, exemplify this fact. Constanța had just over 11,500 accidents during the period, three and a half times more than Tulcea, which had almost 3,300. The same goes for fatalities – Constanța had almost four times as many traffic deaths as its neighbouring county. Constanța, however, also has a total population of almost 656,000 people – three and a half times more than Tulcea’s 190,000.
In terms of year-on-year trends, nationally it can be seen that by 2020, the annual number of serious accidents has remained high at an annual rate of around 8,500 incidents. The only exception is 2015, with just over 9,300. In 2020, however, the number dropped sharply to 6,200, then to 4,900 in 2021 and finally 4,700 for 2022.
Although the total number of serious accidents almost halved since 2013, the number of fatalities fell much less, from 1,861 in 2013 to 1,633 in 2022, a drop of just 12% in a decade.
At the regional level, changes varied. Most counties, such as Argeș, Galați and Hunedoara, followed the national downward trend – Hunedoara in particular saw a welcome drop in deaths of almost 50%.
Most counties have fewer accidents than they did ten years ago, but when it comes to fatalities, the numbers have almost stagnated in many cases, and this is evident at the top of the pyramid.
Suceava and Bacau have seen some improvement, but in Constanta, the numbers of accidents and deaths have remained virtually unchanged. Dolj even saw a slight increase in fatalities compared to 2013, from 55 to 61.
The best change in this segment was made by Prahova county, where the number of fatalities dropped by more than 60%: from 75 (2013) to 28 last year.
Romania and Europe – contradictory trends and explanations
In 2018, the European Union set a target to reduce car crash deaths by 50% by 2030, and the significant progress begun in 2020 is due in part to the reduction in global traffic due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
During this period, Romania has made modest progress compared to the European average, and the causes of this problem run much deeper than the pandemic.
In 2022, the European Road Safety Observatory produced a safety profile for each EU country and the diagnosis for Romania was not positive.
According to the observatory, since 2001, the rate of fatal accidents in Romania has been falling significantly slower than in other EU countries. Moreover, the last decade has seen an increase in the number of deaths and serious injuries in motorway accidents.
These findings can be explained to a large extent by factors such as poor road infrastructure, both in terms of density and quality, and the quality of vehicles. Personal cars in Romania are, on average, considerably older than in the rest of Europe, points out the observer.
The observatory also mentions legislative issues, such as the fact that Romania is the only EU member with a limit of 0.8 g/l pure blood alcohol above which all drivers caught drinking and driving are criminally liable.
In most EU countries, this limit is between 0.2 and 0.5 g/l. Countries such as Germany, France, Austria and Ireland keep a limit of 0.5 for most of the public, while professional drivers have even higher restrictions, with a limit of 0.2, according to the World Health Organisation. In other EU countries, such as Sweden, Poland and Estonia, the 0.2% limit is imposed on all drivers.
Current legislation and the unwillingness of authorities to enforce traffic laws exacerbate Romania’s problems in this regard, according to the World Bank.
“Anastasia”: Legislation and drugs
In terms of the law and its enforcement, substance use while driving has become a central part of the conversation since the May 2nd tragedy, and some steps have been taken recently to toughen penalties.
At the end of July, the “Anastasia law” was enacted, which says that suspended sentences can no longer be given out for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol if they cause accidents that result in fatalities.
It is hard to predict what effect the new legislation will have on the phenomenon, which shows no sign of slowing down – in 2022, almost 1,500 criminal cases were filed for driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol in the capital alone. In 2021, the number was almost identical.
The problem is not just in Bucharest. According to HotNews, in the last 20 months, nearly 5,000 drivers have been caught drugged behind the wheel. Their number increased in 2023 by 3% compared to the same period last year.
In this context, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu announced the intention of some politicians to tighten measures against drivers who drive drunk or drugged, according to G4Media. The new measures, proposed by social democrats, could lead to the loss of a licence for ten years for committing such an offence, the prime minister said following the PSD’s National Political Council meeting on Saturday.
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