The European Commission published the figures on the progress in cutting EU road deaths and they show that the very promising EU-wide reduction throughout the last decade (-6%) was in 2011 reduced to -2%. The Commission also warned that the tend is reversing in countries who used to have very strong safety records, such as Germany and Sweden.

The table "road fatalities per country" that shows progress since 2001, with EU-wide figures and a breakdown per country, also includes the most recent figures for 2011. The figures for 2011 indicates that progress in cutting road fatalities significantly slowed last year (to -2%). Over the last decade, EU road deaths decreased by on average 6% each year. And in some years the decrease has been as much as 11% (2010). In May 2011, the Parliament Transport Committee approved a plan for more road safety.

European Commissioner for Transport, Siim Kallas, stressed that this is the slowest decrease in road deaths in a decade. 85 people still die on Europe's roads every day. For this reason, the Commission plans to sharply intensify efforts at EU and national level to reach our goal of cutting road fatalities in half again by 2020. In addition, he announced his intention to intensify efforts relating to national enforcement and to vulnerable road users using motorcycles.

The table is published under the EU road safety action plan 2011-2020. It also shows that major progress has been achieved. Road fatalities were cut by almost 45% and more than 125,000 lives were saved. The road safety action plan sets out a mix of initiatives focussing on making improvements to vehicles, infrastructure and road users' behaviour.