The National Road Safety Authority (ANSR) revealed today: "In August there was a worsening in the evolution of the indicators, with a growth of 42.5% in fatalities, in contrast to the reductions of the two previous months, and increases of 9.1% in the number of accidents, from 2.4% for serious injuries and 11.6% for minor injuries, compared to August 2020”.

According to the document, in August there were 2,996 road accidents on Portuguese roads, which caused 57 deaths, 217 serious injuries and 3,644 minor injuries.

ANSR states that the evolution of fatalities in August reflects "to a large extent the effect of August 2020, since the values ​​for August 2018 and 2019 had been 55 and 54, respectively, that is, of the same order of magnitude".

They state that in August a new easing of lockdown regime came into effect, with the elimination of restrictions on circulation on public roads, the end of the obligation to telework and the resumption of activities that had been closed until then.

The report indicates that, between January and August, there were 17,668 accidents involving victims on the continent, resulting in 242 fatalities, 1,261 serious injuries and 20,630 minor injuries.

ANSR states that fatalities decreased by 5.5% (14% less) compared to the same period in 2020, but accidents with victims increased by 3.7% (629 more), serious injuries increased by 4.6% (55 more) and minor injuries rose 4% (plus 784).

The number of road accidents has increased monthly since March, when compared to the same period in 2020.

However, the report states that “when compared to the average of these eight months of the previous five years (2016 to 2020), there were reductions in the totals of all the main indicators: -16.3% in accidents, -19.9 % in fatal victims, -8.9% in serious injuries and -19.1% in minor injuries”.

ANSR also reports that collision was the most frequent type of accident (53.5% of accidents) despite being at the origin of 40.9% of fatalities, while crashes, which accounted for 35.3% of the total disasters, accounted for 46.7% of fatalities and 42.7% of serious injuries.