Murcia Sees Sharp Rise in Crashes

Murcia posted the European Union’s biggest regional increase in road crashes over the last decade, according to Eurostat data published April 27. (laopiniondemurcia.es) (ec.europa.eu) The Region of Murcia recorded 1,302 more traffic accidents in 2024 than in 2015, topping a comparison of more than 300 European regions. Cantabria followed with 835 more crashes, ahead of Severozapaden in Bulgaria and Drenthe in the Netherlands. (laopiniondemurcia.es) Murcia logged 2,050 traffic accidents in 2024, which placed it 76th among European regions by total crashes that year. Liguria led the ranking with 5,275, followed by Salzburg with 5,269 and Tyrol with 5,148. (laopiniondemurcia.es) The Eurostat release landed as the European Union reported 19,934 road deaths in 2024, down 2.2% from 20,384 in 2023. The bloc averaged 44 road deaths per million inhabitants. (ec.europa.eu) That means Murcia’s regional rise in reported crashes ran against a broader European pattern of declining fatalities over the same period. Eurostat said road deaths across the bloc fell 17.4% between 2014 and 2024. (ec.europa.eu) Murcia’s local road-safety picture had already worsened before the new regional ranking. Spain’s traffic authority said 49 people died in 43 fatal crashes on Murcia’s interurban roads in 2024, with 109 seriously injured. (laopiniondemurcia.es) (dgt.es) La Opinión de Murcia reported that 49 deaths were the region’s highest toll on interurban roads in the last decade. The newspaper said conventional roads, car occupants and collisions accounted for the largest shares. (laopiniondemurcia.es) Eurostat’s road-safety datasets are drawn from CARE, the European Commission’s database of crashes causing death or injury, using NUTS 1 regions for comparison. Murcia now sits at the center of that map for growth in crashes, even as Europe’s fatality trend keeps edging down. (ec.europa.eu 1) (ec.europa.eu 2)