In 2010 road accidents resulting in deaths or injuries in Italy are 211,404, with 4,090 killed and 302,735 injured.
Compared to the previous year (2009), a decrease of 1.9% for accidents, 1.5% for injuries is recorded , while the death toll is 3.5% down.
As to the target established in the White Paper submitted by the European Commission on 13 September 2001 (a 50% reduction in fatalities by 2010), Italy records a 42.4% decrease in the number of deaths, the same as the EU27 average (-42.8%).
In 2010, 160,049 road accidents, 218,383 injured and 1,759 killed persons are counted on the roads in urban areas. As to the motorways, 12,079 road accidents are counted (injured 20,667 persons and 376 killed persons. On the other rural roads (motorways excluded), 39,276 road accidents, 63,685 injured and 1,955 killed are recorded.
The mortality index (the ratio between deaths and road accidents per 100), shows that the most dangerous accidents occur on the rural roads (motorways excluded), 5 deaths every 100 road accidents. Accidents on roads in urban areas are the less dangerous (1.1 deaths per 100 accidents). On motorways, the index is equal to 3.1 per 100.
The mortality index is higher than the daily average (1.9 deaths per 100 accidents) from 8 p.m to 7 a.m, with a peak at 4 in the morning (5.7 deaths per 100 accidents). Sunday is the day of the week with the highest mortality index (3.1 deaths per 100 accidents).
During the night-time (between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.), the highest mortality index is reached on Wednesday and Friday night (4.0 deaths per 100 accidents) and Saturday night (3.8 deaths per 100 accidents).
The frontal-lateral crash is the most frequent type of accident between vehicles (73,272 accidents, 994 deaths and 109,017 injuries), followed by rear end collisions (38,541 accidents, 395 deaths and 64,181 injuries). High speed, breaking of the rules and driver’s distraction are the main causes of road accidents.
In road accidents, the death of the driver represents 69.4% of the total deaths, the death of passengers are 15% and the death of pedestrians are 15.6%. Among drivers deceased in road accidents (2,837 in total), young people aged 20- 24 are the most hit compared with other age classes (282 deaths and 25.885 injuries).
Cars represent the vehicle category mainly involved in road accidents (67.8%), motorcycles represent the 13.2% out of total vehicles involved, moped 5.6% and bicycles 3.9%.
More detailed regional information are available on Istat data warehouse, I.stat, at http://dati.istat.it/ (Theme: Health Statistics / Sub theme: Road accidents)