In 2011, there were 65,024 road traffic injury accidents in mainland France. 3,963 people were killed within 30 days of their accident, including 793 pedestrians, 255 cyclists, 431 moped riders, 886 motorcyclists, 5,006 motorists and 116 truck users. 128 children aged 14 or under died, 144 teenagers aged 15-17, 813 young adults aged 18-24, 758 seniors aged 65 or over.
The purpose of the 2011 Road Safety Report is to raise awareness of accidents and to understand their components, in particular through thematic and cross-sectoral analyses. It is also a question of highlighting the major challenges of road safety.
Among the factors, speed remains structurally the major risk factor for transverse accidents. Alone or combined with other causes, speed generates most accidents and, above all, determines their severity. Driving under the influence of alcohol remains, for the sixth consecutive year, the leading criminal cause of death while driving. In 2011, alcohol and psychotropic drugs represent more than 30% of people killed in road accidents, a rate that has not declined for more than ten years. Driving with a negative blood alcohol level would have saved 1,150 lives. Other danger factors are also increasing, such as the use of hand-held mobile phones while driving, driving under the influence of high-risk drugs.
The Orientation and Programming Law for the Performance of Homeland Security (LOPPSI2) was passed on 14 March 2010. It provides, among other things, for:
- the extension of the framework for drug testing;
- the additional penalty of vehicle confiscation, which is mandatory for certain offences;
- the possibility for the prefect to proceed with the immediate immobilisation and impoundment of the vehicle in the event of compulsory confiscation of the vehicle;
- the possibility for the judicial authority to make the maintenance of the right to drive conditional on the author of a driving offence under the influence of alcohol, the installation in the vehicle of an alcohol ignition interlock test (EAD).
Finally, motorcyclists accounted for 23% of motor vehicle users killed on the road. Their mortality, which was contained in 2010, increased by 8% in 2011. Pedestrian mortality is also changing in a worrying way, with an increase of 7%. In addition, it is worth noting the increase in mortality among 25-44 year-olds (+1.8%) and among 65-74 year-olds (+6.1%).
Faced with the worrying increase in road deaths at the beginning of the year, the Inter-ministerial Committee on Road Safety met on 11 May.