In 2000, there were 121,223 road traffic injury accidents. 7,643 people were killed within 6 days of their accident, including 793 pedestrians, 255 cyclists, 431 moped riders, 886 motorcyclists, 5,006 motorists and 116 truck users. 343 children aged 14 or under died, 331 teenagers aged 15-17, 1,633 young adults aged 18-24, 1,270 seniors aged 65 or over.
In 2005, France adopted international best practices and now records people killed up to 30 days after the accident. As a result, it is now estimated that 8,170 people were killed in 2000 within 30 days of the accident.
In 2009, only 4,273 people were killed (within 30 days of their accident), including 2,160 motorists.
The purpose of road safety reports is to make accidents known and to understand their components, in particular through thematic and transversal analyses. It is also a question of highlighting the major challenges of road safety.
Beware, the definitions of hospitalized and killed change in 2005, the results on these indicators cannot be compared without precautions.
In July 2002, road safety was one of the four priorities for the French President. Measures to increase road safety were implemented, and the first fixed speed cameras for automated speed control installed in October 2003.
In July 2003, driving while alcohol impaired now results in a 6 point withdrawal on the driving licence.
The probationary driving license is put in place as of March 1, 2004.
In 2005 France modified definitions for hospitalized and killed:
- a person who dies within 30 days of the accident is registered as killed in the national accident database (compared to 6 days previously). For long-term trends, the number of fatalities before 2005 is multiplied by the coefficient 1.059 to estimate 30-day mortality.
- an injured person is qualified as hospitalized if they stay in hospital for more than 24 hours, compared to 6 days previously. There is no coefficient to re-estimate the number of hospitalized people for previous data series.
There were fewer than 5,000 deaths in 2006 and a 51% reduction in mortality over the decade. More than 30,000 lives were saved during this period, three-quarters of which were saved due to lower speeds and 11% due to improved fleet safety.
The number of deaths per billion km travelled in 2010 was 7.1. Traffic has only increased by 7% since 2000.