Statbel has published new maps showing and analysing road dangerousness in Belgium between 2017 and 2022.
These focus on road accidents and casualties (fatalities and seriously injured) where at least one motor vehicle was involved[i].
In 2022, there were 18,8 accidents and 1,9 victims per 100 km of road in Belgium.
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| Accidents per 100 km of road (FR) | Victims per 100 km of road (FR) |
The Brussels-Capital Region registers the highest number of accidents per 100 km of road
The Brussels-Capital Region has the highest concentration of accidents per 100 km of road. There were 126 accidents per 100 km of road. This figure is 22.7 in Flanders and 11.2 in Wallonia.
The Brussels municipalities register the most accidents per 100 km of road
At provincial level, Antwerp registers 32.0 accidents per 100 km of road and East Flanders 25.9 accidents.
Proportionally, these two provinces also have the most victims per 100 km of road: 3.1 for Antwerp and 3.0 for East Flanders. In the Brussels-Capital Region, this figure amounts to 6.6 victims per 100 km.
With 4.0 accidents, the province of Luxembourg registers the fewest accidents per 100 km of road. The province of Namur registers 8.5 accidents and Walloon Brabant 14.3 accidents.
Luxembourg and Walloon Brabant register less than one victim per 100 km of road. These provinces are closely followed by Liège and Namur with 1.1 victims.
The municipalities with the most accidents for 100 km of road are in Brussels-Capital. 264.8 accidents per 100 km are registered in Ixelles, 249.3 in Saint-Gilles and 209.5 in Koekelberg.
The municipality of Molenbeek-Saint-Jean has the most victims per 100 km of road (17.2), followed by Edegem with 14.8 victims and Koekelberg with 13.5 victims.
i The statistics on road traffic accidents compiled by Statbel relate to road traffic accidents involving personal injury in Belgium for which a police report has been drawn up.
The first map shows the total number of accidents involving at least one motor vehicle per 100 km of road per municipality.
In terms of casualties, this is the sum of those killed on the spot, fatally injured and seriously injured when at least one motor vehicle was involved per 100 km of road per municipality.
We calculated the number of km of road per municipality using road network data from Open Street Map (OSM) 2023 and cross-referenced them with municipal boundaries. We chose to have a less extensive classification of roads and to focus on motorways, main and secondary roads, minor roads, etc., which are commonly used by motor vehicles. We have therefore removed roads that are unsuitable for cars, such as pavements, cycle paths, bridleways and other small paths.
That said, the removal of roads unsuitable for cars does not mean that our databases do not include accidents involving pedestrians and cyclists. Even if we have removed cycle paths and pavements from the OSM file, an accident between a car and a cyclist (or pedestrian) generally happens at a junction or crossroads. The same goes for pedestrians: it's rare for an accident to happen on the pavement. Most of the time, it happens on the pedestrian crossing or simply when crossing the road.