Motorists and cyclists on a boulevard in Paris in May 2020. -

LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP

A figure never seen since the post-war period.

Under the effect of containment linked to the coronavirus pandemic, the number of road deaths amounts to 2,550 people for the year 2020, Road Safety announced on Friday, below the symbolic bar of 3,000 deaths.

The annual death toll had never previously fallen below this level.

The fall in 2020 marks a drop of 21.4% compared to 2019 (3,244), but its significance is "to be put into perspective because" of the health crisis, specifies Road Safety.

Confined motorists

The spring 2020 containment, for example, led to a 75% drop in traffic in April, according to the Center for Studies and Expertise on Risks, the Environment, Mobility and Planning (Cerema).

During the same month, road fatalities had fallen by 55.8% (103 deaths).

Mortality in Overseas Territories, where the health crisis had less impact on travel, decreased by 8.7% in 2020 (232 deaths).

In mainland France, other indicators are also on the decline, including the number of bodily accidents recorded by the police (-19.7%) and the number of injured (-20.9%).

The decline in motorist mortality also follows the general trend (-23%, or 1,243 deaths).

Truck drivers still very concerned

As individual modes of travel have been favored with the Covid-19 pandemic, the mortality of pedestrians, cyclists and users of personal motorized travel vehicles (EDM, such as electric scooters) decreases much less.

Thus, 389 pedestrians were killed (-94), 174 cyclists (-13) and eight EDM users (-2).

The mortality of truckers is not decreasing (35 killed) "probably because the movement of heavy goods vehicles, linked to vital economic needs, has not been strongly impacted by the restrictions", estimates Road Safety.

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