In 2012, in Italy occurred a total of 186,726 accidents, which caused 3,653 deaths and 264,716 injuries. The number of accidents, injuries and deaths has continued the downward trend, decreasing respectively by 9.2%, 9.3% and 5.4 in comparison with 2011.
Compared with the European target halving the number of deaths to 2020, the mortality rate has decreased overall by 11.2%. The reduction was more modest on the primary extraurban road network, amounting to 9.8%. In 2012, on the main roads there were 5 deaths more than in 2011.
The length of the primary road network is 54,176 km (13,3% of which is motorway), on which occurred a total of 38,507 accidents (71 road crashes per 100 km), 1,492 deaths (2.75 per 100 km) and 43,730 injuries. These crashes account 20.6% of the total accidents, but with more serious consequences: the mortality rate is 3.9 deaths per 100 accidents, while on urban roads is 0.9 deaths per 100 accidents.
The summer months of July and August are the ones in which there is the greatest number of accidents and deaths.
The distribution of the data according to the day of the week shows that the death rate is higher during the weekend: 4.6 and 4.8 deaths per 100 accidents respectively on Saturday and Sunday, compared with an average rate of 3.9.
From Monday to Friday appears to be particularly high the number of accidents on the motorway network.
Regarding the hourly distribution of accidents, the peak is recorded at around 18.00 with high values, however, also around 9.00.
On these roads, on average there are 34 fatal accidents every 1000 road crashes. This rate is lower for cars (28) and higher for the freight transport vehicles (43) and for two wheelers vehicles (53). The frequency of fatal accidents increases in fact in the case of the freight transport vehicles and of two wheels vehicles: the firsts are involved in 12% of accidents but in 18% of fatal accidents and the seconds are respectively involved in 11% and 15%.
The most frequent types of accidents are the rear-end collision (31.1%), the front-side collision (22.3%) and the run off (16.8%).
The front collision shows the highest mortality rate (13,7 deaths per 100 crashes) and causes the highest number of victims (324), followed by the front-side collision (297), the run off (295) and the rear-end collision (231).
To read more about road accidents in Italy
To receive the CD about road accidents on main roads: Infostat@aci.it