Elderly people most frequently become traffic casualties as pedestrians and cyclists, a conference on road safety, organized by the Zagreb-based Jutarnji List daily and the Croatian ministries of the interior and health, was told on Tuesday, state agency Hina reported.

Addressing the conference, the executive director of the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), Antonio Avenso, presented the European statistics showing that of all the cases of traffic accidents involving elderly persons as casualties, 47% are when they are pedestrians and 44% when they are cyclists.

Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said that in Croatia, elderly citizens accounted for 55.4% of the traffic-related deaths of pedestrians, the Interior Ministry said in a press release.

Bozinovic was quoted as saying that the situation had improved in 2020 in terms of traffic fatalities.

Last year, the number of traffic-related deaths was slashed by 20% compared to 2019, which also saw a record low number of road fatalities since Croatia gained independence.

He ascribed the more favourable trends to the amended traffic safety legislation and harsher penalties.

Health Minister Vili Beros was quoted as saying that Croatia has set its 2030 targets whereby an emergency team’s arrival at a traffic accident scene should be within 10 minutes in an urban settlement, and within 30 minutes in rural settlements so as to reach the golden hour objective in the most traffic accidents.

Traffic accidents are the third most common cause of death from injuries for senior citizens, and 17% of the cases of hospitalization of the elderly are injuries sustained in traffic accidents.