One-quarter of road fatalities occur in the capital
Road safety used to make the headlines at the beginning and end of each holiday with the mass exodus and return of vacationers. In Athens, though, every single day has become as dangerous as the holidays. Research shows that more than half of the accidents on Greek roads (54 percent) occur in Athens, as do one-quarter of road deaths (24 percent). A study by the Road Safety Observatory (POA) found that 90.9 percent of the accidents in the capital occurred on local roads. And Traffic Police data indicate that 16.5 percent of road deaths involved pedestrians (213 out of 1,292 fatalities). As POA noted, 42.3 percent of accidents in which pedestrians lost their lives while crossing the road occurred in Attica. An estimated 50 percent of such deaths occur less than 50 meters from a crossing. In Greece, 25 percent of deaths and injuries in urban areas are caused when pedestrians are hit by cars, compared with the European average of 15 percent.
