Canary Islands report fewer road deaths, though only in one region

The Spanish traffic authority DGT has reported 31 road deaths on the country roads of the Canary Islands as of Monday. However, the figures vary widely. Whilst the overall figure fell, it actually rose in one region of the Canary Islands.

Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura actually recorded one more road death on rural roads – 15 in total – than in the same period last year. In the west of the Canary Islands, however, the figure fell sharply, resulting in an overall decline across the islands.

On Tenerife, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, the DGT recorded 16 fatalities. In the same period last year, the figure was 25. This represents a fall of 36 per cent. For the Canary Islands as a whole, the DGT recorded 31 fatalities, down from 39 the previous year, representing a fall of 20.5 per cent. The number of fatal accidents fell from 37 to 30. But that’s not all:

Canary Islands: Country roads claim more lives than urban traffic

The statistics only cover accidents on rural roads. Collisions in urban areas are not included. Road deaths are defined as people who lose their lives within 24 hours of the accident. Over the same period, the nationwide figure fell from 780 to 754. Most recently, there were two further fatalities in the Canary Islands, one in the east and one in the west.

Previously, the number of accidents in the Canary Islands had risen sharply. The current decline therefore marks a statistical reversal. Most recently, more fatalities had been recorded on the roads of the Canary Islands than at sea.

The full annual report from the Canary Islands Statistics Office for 2024 recently provided a detailed breakdown of how the number of road accident victims was distributed between urban and rural areas: at that time, the office recorded 3,857 accidents involving casualties on all roads, with 69 fatalities and 5,401 injuries. Forty-six of the fatalities occurred on rural roads, whilst 23 occurred in urban areas.

The fall in the number of fatalities is also attributed to vehicles becoming increasingly safer. This is because, in contrast to the falling accident figures, the Island Council of Tenerife, for example, has recorded a sharp rise in vehicle traffic at its counting points. In July, an average of 1.75 million vehicle movements per day were recorded on the largest of the Canary Islands. The highest figure was recorded at a station in La Laguna in the north of Tenerife, with an average of 111,000 vehicles per day.