Norway best in world in traffic safety: report

OSLO - Norway has least traffic accidents in the world, leaving other European countries much behind, newspaper Aftenposten reported Wednesday.

The total number of traffic accidents in EU has decreased only by three percent in four years, Aftenposten wrote.

According to fresh report from organization European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), no other country in the EU nor European Free Trade Association (EFTA) area has had a major reduction in death rates from 2010 up to now.

"Norway was already low (on the graph) and still has significant reductions. Now you (in Norway) have the lowest number of people killed in the world. That is inspiring,"Graziella Jost, program director of ETSC, told Aftenposten.

Last year Norway had 106 fatalities, which corresponds to 20 deaths per one million inhabitants. This is the lowest death rate in traffic since cars became common way of transportation in the post-war era, the report said.

Sweden also has quite low rate of 25 fatalities, and both Britain and Switzerland have 27 fatalities per one million inhabitants. In France, the number is 53, while the EU average is 50. The global average is 174 fatalities per one million inhabitants, according to WHO's 2015 report.

With the exception of some micro-states and small island states, no country outside of Europe has reported as low death rates as Norway, Aftenposten wrote.

Norway is also among the countries in the world with the lowest number of people killed in relation to the annual mileage.

"We get more inquiries than before and are more often asked to explain what was the key to our success," said Guro Ranes, department director of Road Safety in the Norwegian Public Roads Administration.

"We are at a level that is historically low in the world context, but the fact is that there is no hocus pocus behind. We have not taken any very radical grips," she added.

According to Ranes, advantage for Norway can be one organ that is responsible for everything from the road network to vehicle control and drivers training.

In addition, there is a good cooperation with police, health authorities, the Council for Road Safety and others, she said.

Speed limit has been reduced from 80 to 70 km/h on stretches particularly exposed to accidents.

In addition to this, Norwegian drivers became better at complying with the regulated speed limits, Aftenposten wrote.

Jost also pointed out that Norway has a car fleet of high quality and that driving old and bad cars is one reason that the death toll is so high in Eastern Europe.

She expressed belief in new technologies, such as automatic slow down in danger of accidents and systems that encourage the driver to keep the speed limit, that will be important in order to further reduce the death toll.

EU Commission has proposed that such equipment is to be included as a standard in all future cars, the report said.