In 2026 the ETSC Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) marks its twentieth anniversary. Over two decades it has become one of Europe’s most influential road safety tools, comparing performance across 31 participating countries. This 20th annual report assesses progress towards the EU’s goal of halving both road deaths and serious injuries between 2020 and 2030, and reviews the recent EU policy developments that will help determine whether that goal is met. Progress on road deaths remains far too slow. In 2025, around 19,500 people lost their lives on roads in the EU, while more than 100,000 are estimated to have been seriously injured. Road deaths in the EU have fallen by just 2% in the last year, and by 15% since 2019. To reach the 2030 target, a cumulative reduction of at least 31% from 2019 was needed by now, actual progress was just 15%. Poland leads progress between 2019 and 2025 with a 43% reduction in road deaths, followed by Denmark with 32%. Norway and Sweden remain the safest countries for road users, each with 19 deaths per million inhabitants, closely followed by Denmark with 23, against an EU average of 43.

Ranking EU progress on road safety: 20th Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) report 

P.15 IRELAND - Initiatives in 2025 focus on drink-driving, secondary school road safety education and the development of a collision map.

In Ireland road deaths increased by 7% between 2024 and 2025 and have increased by 31% between 2019 and 2025. Road mortality in Ireland has changed little since 2015 but at 34, remains better than the EU average. Road safety initiatives in Ireland in 2025 focused on drink-driving, secondary school road safety education and the development of a collision map. 

Flinebox: The flinebox was deployed in 2025 at festivals and music concerts around the country to educate young people and help them make informed decisions about driving. The flinebox is a self-service breathalyser. It allows festival-goers to read their blood alcohol level and delivers one of three results: No alcohol – Safe to drive; Alcohol present and under the legal limit – Driving not recommended; and High alcohol - Over the legal limit and must not drive.

Road Safety Matters – Transition Year (TY) Programme: Road Safety Matters is a programme aimed at transition year (TY) students (aged 15-16 years) to help them to develop the awareness, knowledge, values and skills to become safe road users. It is an educational toolkit, designed to support teachers and students in Transition Year, containing a range of resources. In 2025 a further 315 teachers from 244 schools nationwide received training to deliver the programme. This brought the total number of trained teachers to 464, across 378 schools nationwide. An independent evaluation of the programme involving teachers and students was conducted in October 2025. The findings were overwhelmingly positive. Teachers described the programme as one of the most successful and impactful TY programmes they deliver. They highlighted the combination of practical resources, real-world relevance, and comprehensive teacher support as key factors that distinguish it from other programmes. Furthermore, feedback from the students who participated in the programme highlighted both the practical learning they gained and the positive impact the programme had on their attitudes and awareness. 

Collision Map: In May 2026, the Road Safety Authority (RSA) launched a new interactive map4 identifying the location of road traffic injury collisions across Ireland. The map is an important tool for members of the public, researchers, local authorities and other stakeholders with an interest in road safety and collision data. The interactive map contains data on fatal, serious and minor injury collisions that occurred on public roads between 2016 and 2024. Users will be able to filter the information by county, local authority area, year and collision severity, via a user-friendly map, allowing for visual analysis of road traffic collision locations nationwide.

P.36 As well as further refining the methodological guidelines developed under the Baseline project for the eight KPIs originally defined by the European Commission, the ‘Trendline’ consortium also identified some new indicators, developed appropriate methodologies and tested these on a limited scale. The ten ‘experimental’
indicators are: Driving under the influence of drugs...

P.39 Table 4. Countries collecting data for EU experimental KPIs. [Includes 1. Driving under the influence of drugs]

P.43 Alcohol target - Table 8. Alcohol targets and baseline values.

[Download background tables from ETSC website]