Road and social safety in Europe: how economic growth and regional dynamics shape mortality trends

Abstract Road and social safety are core public-health outcomes, yet European mortality patterns remain uneven despite sustained economic growth. This study jointly analyzes road fatality risk (fatalities per 10,000 passenger vehicles) and general mortality (deaths per 1,000 population) against GDP per capita for the EU-27 over 2005–2020. We combine time-series trends, cross-sectional correlations, and performance-based clustering to characterize safety profiles. Results show a robust inverse association between economic performance and both safety metrics, alongside marked cross-country heterogeneity. Two contributions follow: (i) integrating road and social mortality in a unified comparative framework over a long horizon; and (ii) deriving data-driven country typologies that can guide targeted policy. Using a standard regionalization only for descriptive summaries and relying on data-driven clusters for inference, we show that macroeconomic growth is insufficient on its own to sustain safety gains without evidence-based, implementable interventions—in enforcement, infrastructure, and health systems. The findings support performance-oriented benchmarking and context-sensitive strategies to accelerate convergence in public safety across Europe.