Malta has the second highest rate in the EU for motorcyclist deaths, according to data published by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical agency.
The data shows that, in 2016, Malta had 20 deaths per one million inhabitants, which is second only to Greece, with 20.1 deaths per one million inhabitants.
The high ratios for motorcyclists in Greece, Malta and Italy may be explained by greater use of motorised two-wheelers there, because motorcycle use is much more dependent on weather and the season, Eurostat said.
On the other hand, Malta ranked lowest when it comes to passenger car deaths, with 11.1 deaths per 1 million inhabitants recorded in 2016. The Eurostat data is from 2017, but in Malta’s case data from 2016 is used.
The figures show that, in total, there were 51.1 road traffic deaths per 1 million inhabitants in Malta in 2016. Romania had the highest rate, with 99.3 deaths per 1 million inhabitants, while Bulgaria came second, with 99 deaths per 1 million inhabitants.
In the cyclists category, Malta had 2.2 deaths per 1 million inhabitants, while the rate of pedestrians killed was 17.4 per million inhabitants.
Pedestrian deaths in the EU are calculated at 10.5 fatalities per million inhabitants, the statistical risk of getting killed in traffic is almost 3 times higher in Latvia and Lithuania and almost 4 times higher in Romania.
There were no deaths recorded in 2016 in the goods vehicles and buses and coaches categories.
The EU picture
The number of fatalities counted in road traffic accidents has fallen considerably over the last 20 years. EU fatalities fell by 41 % between 2007 and 2017. In 2017, however, the figure was roughly unchanged compared to 2016, at around 25 000, or around 50 fatal accidents per million inhabitants.
Overall, the road traffic accident fatality rate in the EU in 2017 has been calculated at 49.7 persons per million inhabitants. Differences between Member States are considerable: the values range from well under 30 deaths per million inhabitants (the United Kingdom and Sweden) to over 90 in Bulgaria and Romania. The mortality rates show a clear gap between low and middle-income countries, on the one hand, and high income countries, on the other. The north-western EU Member States generally rank higher than their southern- and eastern-European counterparts. There may be a combination of reasons such as differences in the vehicle stock, better road design, and stricter enforcement of traffic rules in certain countries.
For the ratios for individual vehicle categories, Table 1 shows that Bulgaria ranks highest in the passenger car category with 63.7 deaths per million inhabitants. This is almost six times the lowest ratio, that of Malta (at 11.1). Conversely, the bicycle-friendly Netherlands, as one would expect, has a relatively high ratio for deaths among cyclists of 5.9 per million inhabitants. However, Romania, Hungary, Lithuania and Belgium (where cycling is far less widespread) have considerably higher ratios (between 6.9 and 9.7).