Deadliest roads in Hungary – MAP

In the period between 2017 and 2019, Hungarian Public Roads identified 168 accident hotspots on the 32,000-kilometre national road network.

Hungarian Public Roads is responsible for the operation and maintenance of approximately 32,000 km of national roads. The company is mainly responsible for performing routine and preventive road maintenance activities, ensuring smooth traffic flow, and inspecting road and pavement quality. Under certain regulations, Hungarian Public Roads is also obliged to identify accident hotspots – short road sections with a high accident risk − on the basis of regular traffic safety inspections, explore the cause of the situation, and determine how the risk of road traffic collisions can be reduced.

After examining road traffic crashes in the period between 2017 and 2019, Hungarian Public Roads identified 168 high-risk areas − mainly road junctions and bends − on the Hungarian road network,

writes Hello Vidék. (This number does not include the 140,000-kilometre inland roads managed by local governments.)

According to the National Police Headquarters, the vast majority − nearly 65% − of road traffic injuries are caused by car drivers. 11% of these accidents are caused by cyclists, 7% by truck drivers, 5% by pedestrians, 4% by motorcyclists, 4% by auxiliary motorcyclists, and 1% by bus drivers.

Most dangerous roads in Hungary

The statistical indicators demonstrate that certain road sections, such as main roads and motorways, have a particularly high number of accidents. Of course, it has to be taken into consideration that higher traffic volumes and congestion affect road safety. According to the data of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office, the following roads accounted for the majority of collisions until 2019:

Main road 4 − 227 accidents/year
M3 motorway − 128 accidents/year
M1 motorway − 125 accidents/year
Main road 3 − 117 accidents/year
Main road 6 − 115 accidents/year
Main road 1 − 110 accidents/year
Main road 7 − 104 accidents/year
Main road 8 − 102 accidents/year
Main road 47 − 99 accidents/year
M5 motorway − 96 accidents/year

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However, besides traffic volume, the length of the road is also a determining factor. Thus, the following list reveals the most dangerous roads based on the number of road traffic accidents per kilometre:

M0 motorway − 1,15 accidents/kilometre
M1 motorway – 0,74 accidents/kilometre
Main road 2 − 0,73 accidents/kilometre
Main road 25 − 0,65 accidents/kilometre
Main road 4 − 0,64 accidents/kilometre
Main road 1 − 0,62 accidents/kilometre
M5 motorway – 0,55 accidents/kilometre
Main road 8 − 0,53 accidents/kilometre
Main road 71 − 0,52 accidents/kilometre
Main road 84 − 0,46 accidents/kilometre

Based on the above-mentioned data,

the M0 motorway is the most dangerous road in Hungary, while Main road 4, which is often called “death road”, is only the fifth on the list.

Hello Vidék also shared a map created by the European Road Assessment Programme that shows the statistical risk of death and serious injury per billion vehicle kilometre on the major roads in Hungary. The crash rate is indicated by the colour of the banding (green means low risk and black indicates high risk).

Photo: South East Europe Road Risk Maps by EuroRAP

Nonetheless, as far as the overall number of road traffic fatalities are concerned, there was a decrease between 2006 and 2019 in Hungary, writes Statista. The highest number of road fatalities occurred in 2006, totalling 1,303 fatalities. By 2019, this number decreased by 53%.

Source: hellovidek.hu, internet.kozut.hu, statista.com