1,040 fatal accidents were recorded in which 1,154 people died and a further 4,634 suffered serious injuries requiring hospitalisation in 2024.
The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, has presented the provisional balance of accidents recorded on Spanish roads in 2024, 1,040 fatal accidents in which 1,154 people died and another 4,634 people suffered injuries that required hospitalisation. This behaviour follows the trend of relative stability of the last decade, with an average of 3 fatalities and 13 hospitalised injuries per day.
Compared to 2023, the data reflect an increase of 14 fatalities (+1 per cent) and 148 hospitalised injuries (+3 per cent), but a decrease of four fatalities.
2024 was a milestone in terms of road mobility, with the highest figures ever recorded, 462,888,133 journeys on interurban roads, 3.15 per cent more (14.1 million) than in the previous year. In terms of the number of vehicles and drivers, the increase was less than 1%. Despite this increase, the figures for deaths and hospitalised injuries, excluding the pandemic years, are among the lowest in recent years.
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2024 marks a record for road journeys while the number of road fatalities stabilises
Taking all this data into account, the rate of fatal accidents per million journeys in 2024 was 2.2, the lowest figure in the last ten years.
In any case, Grande-Marlaska pointed out that ‘the figure of 1,154 deaths is unacceptable, nor should we or can we accept that mobility on the road, a sign of the country’s economic and social strength, should come at such a high price’.
An irregular year
2024 has been an irregular year in terms of road fatalities. In the first quarter, fatalities rose by 16 per cent, which led to the design of a crash plan that stabilised the fatality figures in the second and third quarters, with hardly any growth compared to 2023, and which has reduced them significantly in the last quarter, when 7 percent less than the previous year was recorded.
In 2024 there was an increase in multiple-casualty accidents, those involving two or more fatalities. Of the total number of fatalities (1,040), 91 (9 per cent) were multiple fatality accidents, which accounted for 18 per cent of the fatalities (205). Compared to 2023, this represents an increase of 15 per cent for accidents (+12) and 17 per cent for fatalities (+30).
There has also been a significant increase in fatalities in vans, a fact for which an in-depth study on these accidents has already been commissioned.
Finally, in 2024 there were 28 days in which no road traffic fatalities were recorded in 2024.