Number of serious traffic accidents in Budapest significantly reduced, mayor claims
As a result, the number of serious and fatal road accidents has never been so low in the last decade and a half, including the years of intermittent traffic slowdown caused by the Covid pandemic,
Gergely Karácsony wrote.
According to the published statistics, there were 652 serious and 32 fatal accidents in Budapest last year, and 875 serious and 43 fatal accidents in 2023. This means that the percentage of fatalities in serious road accidents remained unchanged at 4.91%. While there was no improvement here in annual terms, the share is fortunately lower than in 2022, 2021, and 2019, but higher than in 2020. The lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic, however, do distort the data.
Gergely Karácsony noted that
the aim is to reduce the number of fatal road accidents to zero,
which requires joint action with the police and complex road safety measures, above all enforcement of speed limits.
Since the end of October last year, 26 modern speed cameras have been monitoring the main traffic routes in Budapest.
Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, has road safety data up to 2022. These show that 20 653 persons were killed in road accidents in the EU, an increase of 3.7 % compared with 2021.
There were 537 fatal road accidents in Hungary in 2022, down 1.3% in annual terms.
In 2022, 86 persons per million inhabitants were killed in road accidents in Romania, the highest rate in the EU.
Hungary was ranked 8th, with 55 fatalities per one million inhabitants.
The safest country in this respect was Sweden with 22 fatalities.
Cover photo: MTI Photo/Zoltán Balogh
