In no country is travelling by car safer than by train

The latest figures on road accidents published today by the EU Commission are “still unacceptably high”, according to the German Pro-Rail Alliance. However, Germany is well placed in the EU ranking of road accident casualties, which covers several years. In the EU average from 2005 to 2012, 3.6 car passengers were killed per billion passenger-kilometres, whereas in Germany the average was 2.6 fatalities. Travelling by train in Europe is considerably less dangerous, where the EU average measured over the same period was 0.14 fatally injured train passengers per billion passenger-kilometres. The figure for Germany was an average of 0.04 fatalities between 2005 and 2012, once again considerably better than the EU average.

“In no country in Europe is travelling by car safer than by train”,” said Dirk Flege, managing director of the Pro-Rail Alliance