New research results on road safety key performance indicators from 25 EU countries
Finns are some of Europe’s most conscientious cycling helmet users. On the other hand, Finns are quite poor in terms of complying with the speed limits on roads. In addition, Finland placed first in response time to road accidents. The information comes from an extensive road safety project involving 25 EU countries. VTT was Finland’s representative in the project.
“Improving road safety is a societal challenge that requires current and comparable information to support decision-making. The results of the recently completed international Trendline project complement accident statistics and help decision-makers and authorities target road safety development measures more effectively,” says Fanny Malin, Research Team Leader at VTT.
In Finland, data on six road safety key performance indicators (KPIs) were collected: compliance with speed limits, seat-belt use, cycling helmet use, drink-driving, vehicle safety, and the time elapsed between notification of a road traffic accident and the arrival of the first rescue unit at the scene of the accident.
Finland has the shortest response time and the highest rate of cycling helmet use
In Finland, the first rescue unit arrived at road crashes resulting in personal injury within 24 minutes and 50 seconds of the emergency call in 95% of the cases. In other words, only 5% of the accidents involved a longer response time. This result was the best among the seven countries that calculated this KPI, even though the results for those countries were very similar. The first response time was calculated on the basis of data from the Finnish Rescue Services’ PRONTO statistics.
Based on roadside observation, more than 70% of Finnish cyclists used a helmet. Of the 17 countries in which the KPI was calculated, helmet use was most common in Finland. The weakest country was the Netherlands, with a corresponding rate of 5%. The use of a cycling helmet was less common in urban areas than outside them in all the countries.
“It would also be easy to collect data on helmet use by e-scooter riders while observing helmet use among cyclists. This would provide additional valuable information about the safety of e-scooters,” says Fanny Malin.
An online survey was conducted to assess drink-driving among passenger car and van drivers in Finland. According to the survey results, 0.5 per cent of respondents stated that their blood alcohol content may have exceeded the legal limit during a randomly selected trip in the past three days. The outcome of the Finnish survey was similar to the results of an R-survey based on breath tests administered by the police, according to which 0.2 per cent of passenger car and van drivers exceeded the legal limit while driving. Germany was the only other country that used the same method to assess the KPI, and its result was 0.4%.
Compliance with speed limits is poor in Finland
According to research results, 59% of passenger cars complied with speed limits in Finland on motorways with a speed limit of 120 km/h. This result was the fourth best among the eight countries that calculated the KPI in the same way. On the other hand, on rural non-motorway roads with an 80 km/h speed limit, Finland was one of the four worst countries in terms of speed limit compliance: only 35% of passenger cars complied with the speed limit. The result was calculated by examining the data on vehicles travelling in free-flowing traffic obtained from automatic traffic surveillance points. Speeding was calculated as exceeding the speed limit by at least 1 km/h.
“Speeding continues to be a significant road safety challenge in Finland, and more efforts should be made to prevent it. This is why the additional recommendations state that effective measures, such as monitoring, communications and infrastructure solutions, should be developed to prevent speeding,” says Fanny Malin.
Nearly all passenger car drivers and passengers – 97% – used a seat belt in Finland. The result did not differ greatly according to the road environment or between weekdays and the weekend. The result was the 10th best of the 18 countries that calculated the KPI. The Netherlands had the best result, according to which 99.5% wore a seat belt. Seat belt use was assessed by means of roadside observation throughout Finland.
Vehicle safety was assessed using the Euro NCAP ratings. In 2023, 89% of new passenger cars had a rating of at least four stars. This was the fourth highest rate among the 14 countries. Sweden had the highest score of 93%.
Information on the research project
The Trendline project (trendlineproject.eu) conducted in 2023–2025 was co-financed by the European Commission. It involved collecting and analysing road safety indicators defined by the Commission in 25 EU countries. It was a follow-up to the Baseline project completed in 2022, which collected road safety indicators in a coordinated manner for the first time.
Finland's representative in the Trendline project was VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, which implemented data collection and analysis for the indicators and participated in methodology development in collaboration with an international consortium. The project was funded by the European Commission, Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom, Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency and VTT. The Finnish steering group included representatives from VTT, Traficom, Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency, Finnish Road Safety Council and Police of Finland.
The final reports of the Trendline project provide the integrated results from all participating countries and they were published on the project website in early 2026. A report on Finland’s results was published as part of the VTT publication series in summer 2025.
Read more
Read the final reports of the project in English (External link)
Read the report on the Finnish segment of the project
For more information
Fanny Malin, Research Team Leader [email protected], tel. +358 40 648 6593
Johannes Mesimäki, Research Scientist [email protected], tel. +358 40 145 6843
Riikka Rajamäki, Special Advisor [email protected], tel. +358 29 534 6172
Noora Airaksinen, Chief Specialist [email protected], tel. +358 29 534 3494
Meet our expert
Fanny Malin is a Research Team Leader at VTT, where she leads the Transport systems and services team. She holds a Doctor of Science (Tech.) degree from Aalto University, and the topic of her dissertation was how automated cars correspond to current traffic safety challenges in Finland. Since 2014 Malin has done research on traffic safety, with a focus on infrastructure related aspects and improvements, and impacts of technologies such as Intelligent Transport Systems and automated driving.
