Thanks to the confinements decreed to fight against the coronavirus epidemic, the year 2020 saw the number of deaths on the roads fall. This is no longer the case today. The provisional toll of accidents on the roads of the North since the start of 2021 is alarming. So much so that the departmental prefect calls on road users to be vigilant.
“As of August 31, 2021, the provisional accident report in the Nord department shows 62 people who died on the roads between January and August 2021, against 53 on average over these eight months during the 2017-2019 period. », Details the prefecture in a press release published on Wednesday. This still represents an increase in mortality of + 17%.
Speed, the main cause, and alcohol on the rise
Unsurprisingly, it is always the same factors that we find. Speed remains the main cause of fatal accidents, this factor being present in 28% of cases. Alcohol is another, in “clear increase” according to the prefecture: alcohol is the cause of 13 fatal accidents out of 58 during the first 8 months in 2021. It was involved in 8 fatal accidents out of 49 in 2017 -2019.
Statistics that raise the tone of the new prefect of the North, Georges-François Leclerc. Over the next few weeks, the state representative assures us that even more checks will be carried out on the roads of the department. He also recalls that eight unmarked radar cars with outsourced driving have been in circulation since the beginning of September on the most accident-prone axes.