Deaths, laws and trends — country by country, on one standard
How safe are the roads where you live? The answer varies enormously. Between the world’s best-performing countries and its most dangerous, the risk of dying on the road differs not by percentages but by multiples — the fatality rate in the highest-risk countries is many times that of the safest.
Yet comparing countries is harder than it looks. Nations count road deaths differently, publish on different schedules, and report through different agencies. Headline numbers are quoted without context; rates get confused with raw counts; official figures and international estimates quietly disagree.
Our country profiles exist to cut through that. Every profile follows the same standardised format, so you can genuinely compare like with like:
- The key numbers — annual road deaths, deaths per 100,000 population, deaths per registered vehicles, and the direction of travel over the past decade
- Who is dying — the breakdown by road user type: drivers, passengers, pedestrians, motorcyclists, cyclists
- The laws — speed limits, alcohol limits, seat belt, helmet, child restraint and mobile phone rules, in a single reference table
- Institutions and strategy — who is responsible for road safety, what the national targets are, and whether they are on track
- The key issues — the challenges and debates defining each country’s road safety story right now
Every figure is sourced — from national statistics offices, the World Health Organization, the International Transport Forum and official government publications — and every profile states which fatality definition its numbers use, because a “road death” is not counted the same way everywhere. Profiles are reviewed and updated as new annual statistics are released, with the update date shown on each page.
Whether you are a researcher comparing performance, a journalist checking a figure, a policymaker looking for what works elsewhere, or a traveller wondering what to expect — start with the country you know, then see how it measures up.
Browse profiles
Europe
- [Road Safety in Austria →]
- More countries coming soon
Americas · Asia-Pacific · Africa · Middle East
- Profiles in preparation — new countries are added regularly and announced in our [newsletter]
Can’t find a country? Profiles are added continually, prioritising the countries our readers ask about most — [tell us which country you’d like to see next]. Data-driven context for the numbers in these profiles lives in our [Risk Factors series] and [Glossary].
