Malta’s roads saw fewer car accidents, casualties in 2018

Malta’s roads appear to have become safer last year with figures showing that there were 625 fewer traffic accidents and 200 less casualties.

The National Statistics Office said on Monday that 14,378 road traffic accidents were reported in 2018. Of these, 13,641 happened in Malta and 737 in Gozo.

The NSO said there were 1,675 casualties, 127 of which were recorded in Gozo. There were 18 fatalities on the roads, one less than 2017.

The highest number of accidents (1,383) happened in May but the highest number of fatalities were recorded in April when five people died on the roads.

The Northern Harbour region, registered 4,853 accidents, making it the region with the highest number accidents. Albeit, the region witnessed a 7% drop in accidents.

Accidents in Q4 2018

Data for the last quarter of 2018, shows that the largest number of road traffic casualties (59.3%) involved passenger cars, followed by motorcycles (29.9%) and goods-carrying vehicles (6.7%).

The two fatalities involving a driver happened to be motorcyclists. A total of four cyclists were hit by passenger cars, one of whom suffered grievous injuries while the rest suffered slight/insignificant injuries. Another cyclist was hit by a goods-carrying vehicle and suffered slight injuries.

Road traffic casualties caused by accidents between vehicles topped the list with 67.9% of all road traffic casualties.