Snow and ice: the departments where road accidents are more frequent

Météo France renews this Thursday its call for vigilance, in the North-East of France in particular.

While at least 35 departments are on orange alert, many motorists will take to the road despite everything on the eve of the holidays.

You have to be careful, especially in certain departments where accidents are more frequent.

Road safety has certainly carried out studies on accidents in snowy weather, but only in the most mountainous departments of the country.

At the same time, the Ministry of the Interior maintains a valuable file on the location of road accidents in France.

A gold mine to understand the specificities of clashes in snowy weather.

Mapping the most dangerous sections of the territory is also an opportunity to come back to several received ideas about the dangerousness of the road in the mountains, in bends and in the countryside.

Robot portrait of accidents in white coat

In France, between 2018 and 2019, 568 accidents took place in snow conditions, or nearly one in 200 accidents. In 2019, the National Interministerial Road Safety Observatory specified in its annual report that "83% of accidents happened in dry weather ”.

In addition, "the severity of accidents in foggy weather or in snow / hail weather is twice that in dry weather or in rainy weather (with a 10% share of fatal accidents, compared to 5%)" , specifies the report.

Of the 568 accidents we studied, 49 deaths are to be deplored.

That is 8.6% of accidents recorded, when this proportion drops to 5.8% in milder weather.

Visibility problem

Beyond grip, visibility seems to play a major role.

While 15% of accidents take place in poor road lighting conditions, this proportion rises to 27% when it is snowing.

And beware of straight lines!

The data we have shows that 76% of accidents in white weather occur in the middle of a straight line, compared with only 66% in other weather conditions.

In Ile-de-France, on the other hand, the snow does not modify the type of places where accidents take place.

Ile-de-France at the head of accidents

The Alpine departments are customary because of this: in Savoie (73) and in the Hautes-Alpes (5), accidents in the snow represent nearly 2% of accidents.

However, there are few deaths.

On the other hand, once the infrastructures are less adapted to the rigors of winter, accidents can multiply.

At the top of the departments with the most snow accidents in 2018 and 2019: Paris (55 accidents in two years), Seine-Saint-Denis (28 accidents), Val-de-Marne (27) and the Hauts-de-Seine (20 accidents), that is to say the four departments of the inner suburbs, yet not known for their category 4 passes. In question, the density of automobile traffic.

Whether it's snowing or blowing, the inner suburbs still represent around 22% of national accidents.

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If you are in Ile-de-France, the proportion of accidents that take place in built-up areas is even greater when it is snowing.

In the rest of the country, on the other hand, it is rather journeys outside urban areas that we should be wary of: 64% of accidents take place in town in normal weather, against only 47% when it snows.

A map to see more clearly

Year after year, the authorities are fine-tuning the geolocation of so-called “bodily” accidents (resulting in light or serious injuries or death): here is the map on the scale of the country.

Please note, these are only the events noted in 2018 and 2019. Caution is required on all roads and in all circumstances.