The Baltic States and Hungary were particularly affected, and the UK, France and Germany to a lesser extent.  Over the period 2001-2008, best results have been achieved by countries with a medium level of safety.

Luxembourg, France and Portugal, already the top three for their progress up to 2007, keep their leading position with outstanding reductions of 49%, 48% and 47% respectively up to 2008.

Spain and Latvia are catching up with reduction of more than 43% for which they have been recognized with the “2009 Road Safety PIN Award” at the Conference.  Belgium with 38% resumed in 2008 the good progress it was making early in the decade.

Good progress was also made by countries with a longer tradition of road safety such as Germany (-36%), Switzerland (-34%), the Netherlands (-31%) and Sweden (-28%).  In Romania and Bulgaria, however, the number of road deaths was higher in 2008 than in 2001. Slovakia and Poland have not made any substantial progress.

Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK remain the safest European countries for road traffic, behind Malta.

Three years ago (2006), China zoomed past Japan to become the world's No. 2 vehicle market.

Now it looks poised to pass up the United States to be the biggest and this growth is spurring demand for automotive parts, services, and after-care products. China is presently capable of manufacturing a complete line of automobile products and large automotive enterprises. Major domestic firms include the China First Automobile Group Corp. (FAW), china motorcycles Corp. (DMC) and Shanghai Automotive Industry (Group) Corp. (SAIC).

China had a total of 6322 automotive enterprises by the end of November 2006. The total output value of the automotive sector for the first three quarters of 2006 was US$143 billion. Since 2002, 50% of all chinese motorcycles vehicles (cars and trucks) in China had been purchased by individuals. As incomes increase the high annual growth rate of private ownership is expected to accelerate.