Italy experiences surge in road accidents

ROME - - Italy has endured a surge in road accidents since the end of the pandemic including high numbers of people killed and injured on electric scooters last year, according to traffic monitoring authorities.
According to new figures released by the Automobile Club d'Italia (ACI), since the pandemic there have been 165,889 accidents on Italian roads (+9.2%), 3,159 fatalities (+9.9%), and 223,475 injured people (+9.2%).
The social costs are estimated at 18 billion euros (0.9% GDP), an increase of 9.8% compared to 16.4bn in 2021.
The main causes of accidents are distraction: 32,701 (15.0%), issues relating to right of way/traffic lights: 29,840 (13.7%) and speeding: 20,316 (9.3%).
In terms of fatalities by means of transport, groups which have seen an increase are car occupants (+15.4%), motorcyclists (+12.4%), moped drivers (+4.5%) and pedestrians (+3.2%).
Those which have experienced a decrease are cyclists (-6.8%) and truck occupants (-1.8%).
Electric scooter accidents are reported at 2,929, (+39.4%), fatalities (16, +77.8%: 9 in 2021) and injuries (2,787, +40.8%) are increasing.
The fatality rate has increased for all road areas. It remains highest on country roads (4.3 deaths per 100 accidents), stands at 3.5 on motorways and 1.1 on urban roads (4.1, 3.2 and 1.1 respectively in 2021). The national average, however, virtually unchanged since 2010, is 1.9.
A particularly negative note is the proportion of children (0-14 years old) killed in road accidents: 39 in 2022, of which 27 between 5 and 14 years old, an increase (+17.4%) compared to 23 in 2021.
The figure, which shows no sign of decreasing, is higher even than that recorded in 2019; the number of children 0-14 killed was 28 in 2021, 37 in 2020 and 35 in 2019.
Penalties for violations of the Rules of Conduct raised by the Traffic Police, Carabinieri and Local Police of provincial capitals amounted to almost 7.9 million (an average of 21,564 per day, 898 per hour, 15 per minute): 12.3% more than in 2021.
Driving too fast (3,042,682) is still the most fined behaviour (38.7% of the total), closely followed by fines issued for parking regulations: 2,926,821 (37.2%). In third place was non-compliance with road markings and traffic lights (657,764 fines, 8.4%).
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