by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 4:10 PM ET, Tue August 20, 2024
When planning a trip abroad, the logistics of transportation during your stay in a foreign country are invariably one of the details that must be sorted out.
And for plenty of travelers the answer is renting a car. Though for some travelers, the idea of driving on unfamiliar terrain is more than little nerve-wracking.
The good news is that there’s a new ranking of the safest countries to drive a car in Europe. (Think of it as a go-to guide to deciding whether a car rental or public transportation is your best option in a given country.)
The ranking is part of a report titled the Safety Performance Index (PIN), which is issued annually by the Europe Transport Safety Council. The rankings included in the PIN report are based on data provided by the individual countries assessed in the report.
Based on all of this data Norway has been deemed the safest country for road users. In 2023, the country was the leader among PIN-ranked countries with just 20 road deaths per million inhabitants, says the report.
Following close behind Norway in the 2023 safety ranking was Sweden, with 22 deaths per million.
The next highest ranked countries for road safety all tied at below or equal to 35 deaths per million. The countries in this tied group include the UK, Denmark, Switzerland, Malta, Finland, Germany, and Ireland.
As a side note, the average road mortality rate throughout the EU for 2023 was 46 deaths per million inhabitants. And that’s a decline from 55 deaths per million inhabitants from when the report began back in 2013 - meaning it’s getting safer to drive in Europe overall.
Most dangerous roads in Europe
So, now that you know which countries you can rent a car and drive around in without being overly stressed, let’s look at the least safe countries in the PIN ranking.
The two countries with the highest mortality rates are Bulgaria and Romania, with 82 and 81 deaths per million respectively.
Meanwhile, Spain, Slovakia, and the Netherlands earn the less than ideal distinction of having a road mortality rate in 2023 that was higher higher than it was back in 2013, says the report.
The Netherlands and Slovakia, in particular, saw a 20 percent rise in their road death rate over the decade. Spain, meanwhile, experienced a 6 percent increase.
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