From the perspective of accident research, traffic psychology and vehicle technology, the report highlights the areas with the greatest potential for further reductions in the number of road accident victims in the EU and describes the challenges this involves for people, technology and infrastructure.

According to DEKRA’s report, in the European Union, traffic accidents are claiming fewer lives every year. In 1991, over 75,000 road users died in the countries of the EU, whereas this figure dropped to around 26,000 in 2013.

However, DEKRA found that the past year saw a setback in this positive trend. According to preliminary data, around 25,700 traffic fatalities occurred on EU roads in 2014, representing a reduction of only around 1.2% compared with the previous year. As a result, the EU Commission's target of halving the number of traffic fatalities by 2020 compared with 2010 – bringing the number down to below 16,000 – could be in serious danger of being missed.

“If we are to achieve this target, tremendous effort is still needed from everyone involved,” commented Clemens Klinke, member of the DEKRA SE Management Board and in charge of the Automotive business unit, at the presentation of the DEKRA Road Safety Report 2015.

“The status we have achieved so far in terms of vehicle and road safety is thanks to the further development consistently driven forward over the generations with sometimes ground-breaking ideas from individual pioneers. We have to now build on this so that the number of accident victims on Europe's roads will continue to steadily decline in the future, too.”

Aside from vehicle technology such as emergency braking, distance control and lane keep assist, measures such as the introduction of speed limits, blood alcohol limits and the installation of guard rails and concrete barriers on roads have also played a significant part in reducing fatalities. In addition, periodic vehicle inspections, accident research and public information campaigns are also making important contributions towards increasing road safety.

According to DEKRA, the measures and technological advances described above were integral to bringing down the number of road accident victims in Germany alone by around 84% from the record high in 1970 to the more than 21,300 fatalities of today. And that is all despite the dramatic increase in the vehicle population and volume of road traffic during this time.

With the vision of autonomous driving, mobility is now on the verge of a renewed push in innovation. “However, many questions are yet to be answered along the way. Above all, there are numerous legal hurdles to tackle,” explained Mr Klinke.

In his view, the challenge of the future lies primarily in capturing other road users and the traffic situation as a whole, besides the situation for the vehicle itself, and initiating the correct countermeasures for the identified conflicts. “This must be appropriate and proportional and must not give rise to new and sometimes even greater risks than already exist due the original conflict situation,” Klinke said.

He believes this is especially important because the development towards automated driving will require a long transitional period. “On the one hand, we will have increasingly automated vehicles on our roads, while on the other, there will still be many vehicles that do not have these systems," he said. "The issue of compatibility will play a major role here.”

DEKRA's Road Safety Report 2015 is available online for download and for browsing at www.dekra.de/verkehrssicherheitsreport-2015.