How Many Pedestrians Die on EU Roads Each Year? 2024 Data

Quick answer: In 2024, 3,558 pedestrians were killed in road accidents in the European Union, according to Eurostat. That is 17.8% of all 19,934 road deaths in the EU that year. The number has fallen from 5,142 pedestrian deaths in 2014, when pedestrians made up 21.3% of all deaths, but pedestrians remain the second-largest group of road deaths after drivers.

The headline numbers

Eurostat's road safety statistics for the EU, drawn from the CARE database of police and hospital data collected by EU countries, record:

• 3,558 pedestrians killed in road accidents in the EU in 2024, accounting for 17.8% of all fatalities
• 5,142 pedestrians killed in 2014, accounting for 21.3% of all fatalities that year
• 19,934 people killed in road accidents in the EU in 2024 in total, down 2.2% on 2023
• 44 deaths per million inhabitants across the EU in 2024

Pedestrians recorded the second-highest number of fatalities of any road-user group in both years. Eurostat describes the 2024 pedestrian total as remaining relatively high, even after a decade of decline. The overall EU road death total fell by 17.4% between 2014 and 2024, so the pedestrian fall over the same period was larger than the fall for road deaths as a whole.

Counts are not risk. These figures count deaths; they do not measure how much walking people do in each country. A country where more journeys are made on foot can record more pedestrian deaths without its roads being more dangerous for each walk. Eurostat does not publish a pedestrian death rate per distance walked in this release, so this article does not rank countries by pedestrian risk. It reports shares and counts exactly as Eurostat publishes them.

Where pedestrian deaths make up the largest share

The pedestrian share of all road deaths varies widely across the EU. In 2024:

• Malta recorded the highest pedestrian share, at 43.8% of all road deaths
• Romania recorded 32.6%, Latvia 30.4% and Lithuania 28.2%
• The Netherlands recorded the lowest share, at 9.7%, followed by Finland at 13.3%

Small totals need care. Malta recorded only 12 road deaths in total in 2024, so its 43.8% share represents a small number of deaths, and a change of one or two deaths would move the share sharply. Larger countries give a steadier picture: Romania, with the highest overall death rate in the EU at 78 deaths per million inhabitants, also has one of the highest pedestrian shares, while the Netherlands, where cycling is widespread, has the lowest pedestrian share.

Eurostat notes that for five countries, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Portugal and Slovenia, breakdown data by mode of transport were missing for 2024, so their distributions were estimated from 2023 shares. The EU breakdown totals therefore combine reported and estimated data, while the overall total of 19,934 is the reported total.

How pedestrians compare with other road users

By mode of transport in 2024, Eurostat records:

• Drivers and passengers of passenger cars accounted for 43.6% of all deaths, the largest group
• Motorcyclists and their passengers accounted for 18.5%
• Pedestrians accounted for 17.8%, or 3,558 people killed
• Cyclists and e-bike riders together accounted for 9.9%
• Light and heavy goods vehicles, buses and coaches, mopeds and other vehicles together accounted for 10.2%

Drivers have consistently accounted for the highest number of deaths each year, between 61.2% and 67.6% of the total from 2014 to 2024. Driver deaths fell from 14,775 in 2014 to 13,478 in 2024, while passenger deaths fell from 3,893 to 2,892 over the same period.

The comparison shows why walking safety cannot be separated from vehicle safety. Most pedestrian deaths involve a collision with a vehicle, and the vehicle mix on a country's roads shapes the pedestrian total. Eurostat also notes that cycling deaths are likely to be under-reported, as some accidents involving cyclists are not reported to the police. Where cycling is widespread, cyclists make up a larger share of deaths: 27.0% in the Netherlands in 2024, followed by Belgium at 17.9%. Shares move with travel patterns, so a high pedestrian share does not by itself prove that walking is unusually dangerous in that country.

A decade of slow progress, and the 2030 target

The long-term direction is downward, but the pace is slow. Total EU road deaths fell by 17.4% between 2014 and 2024, with rises in 2015, 2021 and 2022 interrupting the decline. Deaths fell sharply in 2020, by 17.3% on 2019, when pandemic lockdowns cut traffic across Europe. The pedestrian total fell over the same decade, from 5,142 to 3,558, and the pedestrian share fell from 21.3% to 17.8%.

In 2021, the European Commission introduced the EU road safety policy framework 2021-2030, which targets a 50% cut in road deaths and serious injuries between 2020 and 2030, as part of the Vision Zero objective of zero fatalities and serious injuries on European roads by 2050. The 2024 figures show the scale of that challenge. More than 3,500 people a year still die on foot on EU roads.

For the overall EU picture, including the safest and highest-rate countries and the split between rural, urban and motorway deaths, see How Many People Die on Europe's Roads Each Year? 2024 Data. France, which recorded the highest number of deaths in 2024 with 3,181, is covered on France road accidents, and the global rankings are on global statistics. All articles are on all articles.

How these numbers were counted

These figures come from Eurostat's road safety statistics in the EU, data extracted in April 2026 from the CARE database, the Community database on road accidents resulting in death or injury. EU countries collect the underlying data through their own police and hospital systems, and the European Commission applies transformation rules so the national data can be compared.

The figures count people fatally injured, meaning death within 30 days of the road accident. Confirmed suicides and natural deaths are not included. Data for the French overseas departments and the Portuguese autonomous regions of the Azores and Madeira are not available. Figures can be revised in later releases.