293 people died on the roads in May.
21% more than in May 2019, the reference month.
The number of bikers who lost their lives almost doubled;
for cyclists, it has quadrupled.
The figures published on Tuesday challenge.
David Julliard, the Interministerial Deputy Delegate for Road Safety, analyzes them.
The latest figures for the month of May are very bad…
DAVID JULLIARD.
It's true, they are very worrying.
293 killed on the roads, that's 50 more than in May 2019. We are comparing to that year, because 2020 and 2021, marked by health restrictions, are not representative.
If we look in detail, the number of accidents and the number of injuries have also increased, but the increase is even more marked for fatalities.
The accidents were therefore more serious.
How to explain it?
It is difficult to say for these figures, which are only provisional.
To have the definitive ones, we have to wait thirty days, and we still have to trace all the stabilized causes of accidents.
But we know that in a classic way, when the weather is good, as was the case this month of May, the effect is negative on accident rates.
Because there are also more users on the roads.
I also believe that there is a form of degradation, a relaxation in the behavior of all users.
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A few weeks before the big departures for the summer holidays, should we be worried?
At Road Safety, we are going to have communication campaigns.
We must continue to repeat common sense advice, sometimes rudimentary.
So everyone knows that wearing a seat belt is mandatory, but users forget it or do without it and the result is terrible: hundreds and hundreds of people killed.
Same for the use of the mobile phone, prohibited when driving a car, a motorized two-wheeler or a bicycle.
Cyclists and motorcyclists pay a particularly heavy price.
Why you think ?
Here again, it is linked to the relaxation of behavior, but not only of these fragile users.
What is striking is that the increase takes place including in the city, we see that the 22 more cyclists killed were in urban areas.
That's half the increase in the number of cyclists who have lost their lives.
You have to be careful when you are a fragile user yourself or when you travel with fragile users.
Take the bike, most fatal accidents occur in collision with a car, a truck or in the blind spot of a bus.
But still a third of cyclists killed on the road die from a fall, alone.
So I would like to remind you of this important rule, outside built-up areas, to overtake a cyclist, you must leave a minimum of 1m50 apart.
After two years of pandemic, during which we traveled less, are we less "immune" against bad behavior on the road?
It is not impossible.
Immediately after confinement, there was an increase in excessive speeding.
It is even quite likely that the relaxation of health constraints will lead to relaxation on the road.
