The country reduced road deaths by a substantial 29% over the decade to 2023, while the average decline in the EU was just 16%.

The accolade, known as the Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) award, recognises Finland’s progress in road safety and is a testament to the country’s long-term targets and comprehensive strategy for improving the road safety of all road users.

Antonio Avenoso, Executive Director of the European Transport Safety Council said: “In Finland, they say ‘vahinko ei tule kello kaulassa’ which roughly translates as ‘accidents don’t come with a bell around their necks’. That may explain why the Finnish take such a comprehensive and strategic approach that seeks to cover many different aspects of road danger.

"The effort doesn’t end when crashes happen either; Finland is the only country in Europe that does an in-depth investigation of every single fatal collision. We congratulate Finland on their progress over the last ten years, and hope they will be inspired to redouble their efforts to reach their ambitious targets for the future.”

The announcement coincides with new analysis published by ETSC which shows there were 20,418 deaths on EU roads last year. This represents a decrease of only 1% compared to 2022, falling far short of the 6.1% annual reduction needed to achieve the EU target of a 50 % reduction by 2030.

ETSC is calling for the establishment of an EU road safety agency, with specific powers such as managing the roll-out of automated vehicles, and carrying out crash investigations. While the other main transport modes in Europe (aviation, maritime and rail) have dedicated EU agencies responsible for safety, there is no such agency for road transport.

ETSC is also urging the European Commission to start work on a new revision of vehicle safety regulations to account for rapidly advancing safety technologies and to push ahead with reforms to periodic technical inspections of vehicles to ensure these technologies are maintained over a vehicle’s lifetime. ■