Road Deaths in France in 2010
Thursday 01 December 2011
There were nearly 4000 road deaths in France last year, with the Bouches du Rhône taking the uneviable title of the most dangerous department in the country.
Road deaths in France have plumetted over the past 30 years, down from around 18,000 in the 1970s to just under 4,000 in 2010.
The figure for 2010 is a reduction of nearly 7% on 2009.
It means that over 300,000 lives have been saved in the 38 years since the nadir of 1972.
This is still 1700 more deaths a year than occurs in the UK, but there is no doubting the considerable improvement that has taken place in road safety in France.
There is a substantial variation in the number of deaths per department, ranging from 150 deaths in the Bouches du Rhône to under 10 in Cantal and Lozère.
However, if the comparison is made by number of deaths per habitant then a rather different picture emerges. The level of road safety in the department of Charente-Maritime then shows a more worrying picture.
Indeed, rural areas of the country accounted for 72% of all deaths on the road, a proportion that has remained unchanged for a decade.
The following table shows the twenty departments in France with the highest number of road deaths, as well as their number of death per million habitants.
| Roads Deaths by Department | ||||
| Department | Number of Deaths | Rate Per Million Habitants | ||
| Bouches-du-Rhône | 150 | 75.8 | ||
| Hérault | 104 | 100.9 | ||
| Var | 90 | 89.1 | ||
| Nord | 85 | 33.2 | ||
| Seine-et-Marne | 82 | 62.3 | ||
| Isère | 78 | 65.1 | ||
| Loire-Atlantique | 78 | 61.5 | ||
| Gironde | 76 | 53 | ||
| Gard | 75 | 107 | ||
| Rhône | 75 | 44.1 | ||
| Charente-Maritime | 73 | 118.4 | ||
| Vendée | 70 | 112 | ||
| Seine-Maritime | 67 | 53.7 | ||
| Haute-Garonne | 66 | 53.5 | ||
| Pas-de-Calais | 65 | 44.5 | ||
| Yvelines | 64 | 45.4 | ||
| Alpes-Maritimes | 60 | 55 | ||
| Loiret | 56 | 85.7 | ||
| Moselle | 56 | 53.7 | ||
| Ille-et-Vilaine | 55 | 56.2 | ||
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