Ireland has been ranked third in the European Union (EU) for the highest share of road deaths on rural roads.
This is according to a new report published today (Thursday, March 28) by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), which revealed a total of 67% of the road deaths in Ireland from 2020-2022 occurred on rural roads.
Finland and Sweden were the two EU countries that ranked higher, while Norway was the country with the highest proportion of road deaths occurring on rural roads during the same period (76%).
The report shows that 10,644 people died on rural, non-motorway roads in the EU in 2022, accounting for around half of all road deaths.
In Ireland, speeds increased by 2% annually on local rural roads over the period 2012-2018 and by 0.7% annually on national primary roads and regional roads over the period 2012-2018.
Among countries monitoring speed on rural non-motorway roads with speed limits between 70km/h and 80km/h, between 53% and 82% of car and van speed observations in free-flowing traffic were within the speed limit in 2022.
In Ireland, on 50km/h rural roads, 22% of car and van speed observations were within the speed limit in 2022.
The proportion of primary roads that are also rural roads and not motorways, ranges from below 5% in France (0.4%), and Latvia (3%) to almost 80% in Ireland and Lithuania.
The report showed that on average across the EU27, 56% of people killed on rural roads are car passengers or drivers, 20% are motorcycle riders or passengers, 9% are pedestrians and 8% are cyclists.
The three most common collision scenarios on rural roads are collisions where the main opponent is a car, a (light or heavy) goods vehicle, or where no other vehicle is involved, the report found.
Rural road safety report
The report recommended that national governments will need to invest significantly to improve the safety of rural roads in order to hit a collective EU target to cut road deaths by half by 2030,
The report also showed that around 10,000 people died on rural, non-motorway roads in the EU in 2022 – accounting for around half of all road deaths.
Installation of side and central barriers, removing roadside obstacles and construction of separated paths for cyclists and pavements for pedestrians are among the recommendations for safer rural roads mentioned in the report.
The authors note that the safest countries of those studied usually have lower standard rural road speed limits, set at 70 or 80 km/h.
Jenny Carson, co-author of the new report commented: “Rural roads can and are being made safer with interventions that do not need to be costly.
“With increasing focus on urban road safety, it is critically important that policymakers don’t forget rural roads where half of road deaths occur.”
Although often seen as an urban road safety issue, around half of cyclist deaths occur on rural roads with cyclists mixing with much heavier and faster moving traffic.
According to the findings of the report, speed remains a major risk factor, with large numbers of drivers still driving above the posted limit on rural roads in many countries despite the availability and proven reliability of automated enforcement technology such as speed cameras and time-over-distance, or ‘average speed’ cameras.