Sub-par Greek roads, especially in the less-traveled provinces, along with more reckless driving habits have often been highlighted in studies, with stats suggesting safety lagged behind other European states. In a recent report, Greece was ranked 6th in terms of the most dangerous European country to drive in, according to Vignetteswitzerland.com, which analyzed 2022 data from the European Transport Safety Council.
However, the data revealed that Greek roads are notably safer than in Romania, which topped the chart as the most dangerous country in Europe to drive in, with 85.81 deaths per million inhabitants. Greece recorded 60.71 deaths per million inhabitants.
The Balkans, as a whole, has the unenviable ‘honor’ of four of the region’s countries comprising the “top four” on the list, as Serbia (82.65 deaths per million inhabitants) came in second, followed by Bulgaria (77.64 deaths per million inhabitants) and Croatia (71.20 deaths per million inhabitants) in 4th place. Portugal bumped out Greece from 5th place, with 62.30 deaths per million inhabitants.
On a positive note, Greece’s deaths per million inhabitants recorded a notable -30.63 drop compared to data from 2012.
The study also found that Norway is statistically the safest country in Europe for driving. Data from 2022 shows that the country only had 21.38 deaths per million inhabitants, the lowest of any European country.
Sweden comes second on the list of safest countries, with just 21.72 road deaths per million inhabitants. Compared to 2012 data, this is a drop of 27.74% from when the country had 30.05 road deaths per million inhabitants.
Coming in third place is the United Kingdom, which comes in with 25.89 road deaths per million inhabitants. The change in road deaths is less significant than other entries on the list, with a drop of just 9.51% from 2012, where road deaths sat at 28.61 per million inhabitants.
