Nine out of ten years with no road fatalities

DEKRA Vision Zero Award for the city of Rheine

Nov 14, 2024 Safety on the road

Mayor: „Multitude of measures have had great positive effect”
Goal of zero traffic fatalities achieved in many cities around the world
Data from 29 countries: Interactive map at www.dekra-vision-zero.com

The DEKRA Vision Zero Award 2024 goes to the German city of Rheine. The city with a population of around 78,000 has not had a single road fatality in urban traffic in nine of the past ten years. The road safety experts at DEKRA are recognizing this achievement with the award. Rainer Steffens, head of the EU representation of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, accepted the award on behalf of the city at the DEKRA annual reception in Brussels.

DEKRA experts continuously evaluate the latest accident statistics available for the interactive online world map at www.dekra-vision-zero.com . For a total of 29 countries in several continents, the map shows those cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants that have achieved the goal of zero traffic deaths in at least one year since 2009. Since 2016, particularly successful European municipalities have been honored with the DEKRA Vision Zero Award. “Vision Zero” means the goal of zero traffic deaths – and, in the next step, of zero serious injuries – on the roads.

“The fact that Vision Zero is not a utopian dream, but a reality that can be achieved already today, is demonstrated not only by our award winners, but also by many other cities and towns around the world”, said DEKRA CEO Stan Zurkiewicz at the award ceremony. “More than 1,400 cities, in the 29 countries we have analyzed, have achieved zero traffic deaths at least once, many of them for several consecutive years. However, every fatality on the road is one too many.” Efforts must continue to get ever closer to the goal of zero traffic death in more and more cities, as well as outside the urban areas, said Mr. Zurkiewicz.

“I am surprised that we have such an excellent road safety record in a global comparison”, said Dr. Peter Lüttmann, Mayor of Rheine, about the award. ”I am all the more pleased about the fact that the multitude of our road safety measures in terms of construction as well as organization have had such a great and positive effect.”

In Europe, a total of more than 900 towns and cities over 50,000 inhabitants have already achieved the goal of zero traffic deaths in at least one year since 2009. Now fewer than 21 of the 22 European countries for which the relevant data is available have successful “Vision Zero” cities, the highest numbers being recorded not surprisingly in the populous countries such as Germany (162 towns and cities), the United Kingdom (147), Spain (130), France (101) and Italy (77). The European list includes 37 large cities with well over 200,000 inhabitants – among the largest are Mönchengladbach (Germany), Bergen (Norway), Katowice (Poland), Newcastle (UK), Vigo (Spain), and Espoo (Finland).

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