UMU researchers carry out an exhaustive study of road accidents in Spain between 2008 and 2019, financed by Fundación Mutua Madrileña and Fundación Gaspar Casal
The road accident rate in Spain has varied in the last decade: there are more accidents, but fewer fatalities and these are, increasingly, ‘vulnerable users’, such as motorcyclists, cyclists or pedestrians. To the point that in 2019 they already accounted for, for the first time in history, more than half of the total fatalities in Spain. These are some of the conclusions of the exhaustive analysis of all the published data sources presented this Tuesday by the Fundación Mutua Madrileña and the Fundación Gaspar Casal.
The Working Group on Health Economics of the University of Murcia signs this comprehensive research on the socioeconomic and health impact of road accidents in Spain in the period between 2008 and 2019. A period immediately after the tightening of sanctions, both administrative and criminal, for committing traffic offenses, and which covers until just before the start of the pandemic, a few months in which displacements were drastically reduced and with it the accident rate.
The Region of Murcia is the autonomy where the fatality rate due to traffic accidents has been reduced the most since 2008. In that year, the Community almost tripled the national rate of deaths for every hundred accidents and in 2019 it barely exceeds it by 3 tenths. While the national average has been reduced from 3.3 to 1.7 from 2008 to 2019, that of Murcia went from 9.2 to 2.0. Madrid and the Canary Islands are the communities that present a lower risk of death due to a traffic accident per inhabitant, considering both sexes together. On the other hand, the highest traffic mortality rates are recorded in Galicia, La Rioja, Navarra and Castilla y León.
The period analyzed allows, therefore, to obtain a snapshot of the influence of road regulations and the change in habits of citizens in the accident rate, since in these years, the traditional determinants of accidents (speed, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, not wearing a helmet or seatbelt) have been joined by new ones with increasing importance, such as distractions by mobile devices and the vulnerability of cyclists and pedestrians linked to new forms of mobility.
«The decrease in the number of fatalities on the road evidenced throughout the 2008-2019 period is surely the result of the conjunction of several factors, including the influence of the tightening of road safety legislation, as well as the improvements in the passive safety measures of vehicles”, explain the authors of the work, José María Abellán, Jorge Martínez and Fernando Sánchez, from the University of Murcia.
However, the volume of traffic accidents with victims -of any severity- has not stopped growing in Spain since 2012 (with the sole exception of 2017), accumulating a growth of 25.2% during the period between 2012 and 2019 «It is difficult to isolate the causes of this increase in accidents and, in fact, the study does not address its identification, but one reason that can be ventured could be the change in the economic cycle. The economic recovery coincides with the growing trend shown by traffic accidents, since this recovery brings with it an acceleration in the expansion of the automobile fleet, which has as an unwanted side effect an increase in the number of accidents with victims, although this increase is compatible with a change in the composition of the victims, with serious victims receding and minor ones advancing”, the authors point out.
More accidents in cities
A detailed analysis of mortality in traffic accidents allows us to conclude that three out of four deaths occurred on interurban roads, although the proportion of victims on urban roads has not stopped increasing since 2008. The accumulated growth of accidents on urban roads between 2008 and 2019 it is 35.3%.
In line with the above data, the weight of those killed in passenger cars has also been reduced (from 48% to 37%) and there has been an increase in pedestrians and motorcyclists in the total number of fatalities (which went from 16% in both cases to 22% and 24%, respectively). “These changes in the relative importance of the different types of victims probably reflect, on the one hand, new habits of sustainable mobility and, on the other, a greater effectiveness of the passive safety elements (airbags) of cars, which makes increase the weight of “vulnerable users over the total number of fatalities,” the researchers point out.
In 2019, for the first time in history, “vulnerable users” accounted for more than half of all fatalities in Spain. In this sense, the adverse evolution of motorcycle fatalities since 2014 stands out, with a relative increase of 45.3% until 2019. Thus, this means of transport is the one that has seen its percentage share grow the most in the total number of deaths. hospitalized deaths and injuries, increasing 10 percentage points since 2010 and reaching 30% of the total in 2019, a year in which one in four fatalities was a motorcyclist.
Total magnitudes
Between 2008 and 2019, 1,113,963 traffic accidents with victims (whether fatal, serious or minor) were recorded in Spain, 40.5% of which took place on interurban roads and the remaining 59.5% on urban roads. The number of accidents fell between 2008 and 2012, experienced a rise until 2014 and, after a momentary drop in 2015, increased again in 2016, to remain more or less stable until the end of the period. Unlike what was observed in the case of the number of accidents, the total number of deaths in traffic accidents decreased by 43% in the period, although the entirety of this reduction was concentrated between 2008 and 2013.
More male deaths
By sex, three out of four deaths in accidents are men (76% of the total). Therefore, the male mortality rate is significantly higher than the female mortality rate, something that occurs for the entire period analyzed and for all the autonomous communities. «The differences by sex in terms of mortality due to traffic accidents have hardly changed throughout the period, despite the fact that the number of women with a driving license has gone from 38% to 42% of the total between 2008 and 2019. A possible explanation for this fact may be an attitude of greater caution and less proclivity to risky driving behaviors by women ».
#Region #Murcia #region #fatality #rate #due #traffic #accidents #reduced