Bulgaria, along with Spain, Lithuania, Romania and Hungary, remains a country with a very high number of victims of road accidents, compared to 2001.
The black list was included in this year’s report of the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), quoted on October 11 in Bulgaria’s daily newspaper Dnevnik

The report, which covers 29 European countries, found that in 2006 there was a negligible decrease in the number of deaths resulting from road accidents. The European Union (EU) has set a goal  to half the number of crash victims in Europe in the period of 2001 to 2010.
So far, only three states – France, Luxembourg and Portugal – have successfully followed the prescribed measures and the number of deaths in road accidents there has dropped by 40 per cent for the years between 2001 and 2006.

The Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia had the worst road safety records in the EU, the ETSC report said. The three nations posted the highest number of road deaths per million people in 2006.

Malta, followed by the Netherlands and Sweden posted the lowest number of deaths per million inhabitants in 2006.
Lithuania was found to be the worst, with 223 deaths per million people, while Malta had only 27 deaths and the Netherlands only 45 last year.
Altogether, about 39,200 people died on European roads last year.

The report said countries with the best safety records also had the best policies on curbing drinking and driving, speeding and stricter rules on the use of seat belts.
It pointed to the introduction of automatic speed control cameras as a major reason why road accidents decreased on French highways.