Road casualties

In 2023, 270 people died in traffic accidents in the Flemish Region. That is a decrease of 4% compared to 2022. Compared to 2005, the number of road deaths has more than halved (-54%).

In addition, in 2023 there were 2,297 seriously injured traffic victims on the roads in the Flemish Region. In 2005 there were 3,912. Between 2005 and 2023, the number of seriously injured traffic victims fell by 41%.The number of lightly injured fell from 36,116 to 25,283 between 2005 and 2022 (-30%).

In 2023, 33% of road deaths were in a passenger car. Cyclists also accounted for 33% of road deaths. 15% of the road fatalities were pedestrians and 7% were on a motorcycle.

Compared to 2005, there were far fewer deaths in passenger cars and motorcycles in 2023 (both -81%). The decrease is smaller for the other types of road users. Only cyclists saw an increase in the number of road deaths between 2005 and 2023 (+31%). As a result, the share of vulnerable road users (pedestrians and cyclists) in the total number of road deaths rose from 19% in 2005 to 48% in 2023.

In 2023, the differences in road fatalities by age were much smaller than in 2005. In both years, road deaths were highest among young people in their twenties, but the difference with the other age groups was much smaller in 2023 than in 2005.

Among road accident victims, men outnumber women. In 2023, 81% of road deaths were men, 66% of those seriously injured and 57% of those slightly injured.

With 2,567 fatalities and serious injuries in the Flemish Region in 2023, the average number of fatalities and serious injuries in that year was 0.38 per 1,000 inhabitants. In West Flanders and East Flanders, many municipalities were above that average. Flemish Brabant had many municipalities that remained below average.

These are figures based on 1 calendar year. If a major accident with several victims has occurred in a certain municipality in that year, that municipality will quickly exceed the Flemish average. This is certainly the case for municipalities with a small number of inhabitants.

The average number of road deaths in the 27 countries of the European Union (EU27) was 45 deaths per million inhabitants in 2021. With 46 deaths per million inhabitants, the Flemish Region was just above that. This figure was much lower in the Brussels-Capital Region with 7 deaths per million inhabitants, in the Walloon Region it was much higher with 54 deaths per million inhabitants. Among EU27 countries, the relative number of road deaths was lowest in Malta (17 deaths per million population) and highest in Romania (93 deaths per million population).