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.