Greece has most motorcycle deaths per million in EU

Greece has the highest rate of motorcyclist deaths among the European Union’s 28 member-states, according to the most recent data from the EU’s statistics service Eurostat. 

Specifically, according to figures from 2017, Greece had 20.1 deaths per million inhabitants in that year, just above Malta with 20 deaths per million.

In joint third place, with a significant difference, are Italy and Slovenia, both with 12.1 motorcyclist deaths per 1 million inhabitants. Next on the list is Luxembourg with 11.9 deaths per million, followed by Cyprus with 11.8 and Portugal and Croatia with 10.3 and 10.1 respectively. The EU average was 7.5 victims per 1 million inhabitants.

The risk factor is greater in southern European countries where the weather is warmer and drier and motorcycle use more frequent.

In Greece, one in five (19 percent) vehicles on the roads are motorcycles and nearly a third (29.5 percent) of road accidents involve motorcycles. Malta is ahead of Greece with 39.1 percent of all road accidents involving motorcycles.

Overall, Greece ranks seventh among EU member-states as regards road fatalities, with 67.9 deaths per million inhabitants.

The bloc’s most dangerous country in terms of road fatalities is Romania, which had 99.3 such deaths per million inhabitants in 2017, closely followed by Bulgaria with 99 deaths per million, Liechtenstein with 80.8 per million, Croatia with 79.7, Poland with 74.6 and Slovakia with 68.4.

The safest countries were Norway, which had 20.2 road fatalities per million inhabitants, Sweden with 25.3 and the United Kingdom with 28.2 deaths per million.