The trend towards convergence in road accident fatality rates in Europe: The contributions of non-economic variables

• Road safety has become a fundamental part of the European Union’s common policy.
• Europeanization is a process of policy change; convergence is the process effect.
• Evidence of full convergence of traffic fatalities rates across the EU is found.
• Convergence on road safety is possible even without economic convergence.

This article examines the trends in road traffic fatality rates in a sample of European States over the 1970–2010 period. Taking into account that previous research seems to find that the Europeanization process has had a favorable impact on national road safety performance, our main contribution is to test whether the same mechanism might lead to the convergence of Member States as a whole as a possible outcome. Based on typical convergence methodology for Economic Growth Theory, our findings reveal evidence of the full convergence of road fatality rates across a sample of EU countries during said time period. Compared to the uncertain results obtained by the literature on macroeconomic convergence, we do not find support for the convergence of sub-groups of countries, but a one-speed-convergence for all EU countries. This fact shows that convergence is achievable in certain EU areas even beyond economic convergence through successful efforts made jointly at national and community levels.