TIRANA, Aug. 4 – Road accidents have claimed dozens of lives in the past few weeks as traffic on the country’s unsafe roads has sharply increased due to the tourist season at its peak and thousands of migrants returning home.
At least three people were killed and 1 was injured after a car fell off a cliff in the outskirts of the town of Bulqiza in eastern Albania this week. The accident took place near the entrance of the Trebisht village where the car fell off the cliff after the driver lost control. The injured person has been rushed to a nearby hospital.
Thursday’s incident is the latest of many road accidents that claimed the lives of at least 9 people and caused injuries to at least 13 people in one week. Earlier this week, four people were killed in a car accident in Velipoje. The victims, including two Italians, were on holiday in Albania when the driver lost control of the vehicle and ended up in a ditch.
Road accidents in Albania have become the greatest threat to human life. The number of deaths every year attributable to road accidents is high mostly owing to lack of awareness about road safety and the appalling condition of road infrastructure.
According to the latest World Health Organization data, Albania suffered 420 road traffic deaths in 2014 or 1.61 percent of total deaths. In 2015, there were 270 fatal accidents. Officials from the Albanian Ministry of Transports and Infrastructure have blamed poor driving culture. Statistics have shown that 74 percent of the fatal accidents in the country were caused by drivers’ misconduct, 22 percent by motorcycle or bicycle riders and pedestrians, and the rest due to poor infrastructure conditions.
The National Road Authority has blamed insufficient funding, although authorities have been granted millions of Euros in funds from international institutions such as the World Bank. In addition, official statistics show that there are half a million vehicles running in Albania and most of these vehicles are private old second-hand cars.
A recent report from World Bank revealed that Albania has one of the highest mortality rate caused by road accidents at an average of 84.7 deaths/year for every 100.000 vehicles. The World Bank estimates that road accidents have tragic human costs but are also a burden for the economy. Data shows that the economic cost of road accidents in Albania is an average 130 million Euros/year or 1.5% of the GDP.
Last year, Albania signed a World Bank project worth 128.5 million Euros to improve road safety in Albania. The project’s objective is to reduce the death rate to less than 250 a year.
