Risks

According to the Estonian Motor Insurance Bureau, there were 34,314 motor insurance cases in Estonia in 2023, of which 1,724 (1.5% more than in the previous year) were traffic accidents with injuries or fatalities. The increase is mainly due to an increase in the number of accidents involving personal light electric vehicles. Harju County, including the city of Tallinn, stands out with the highest number of accidents.

Major accidents (ten or more victims) account for less than 0.01% of the total number of accidents. There was a total of six such accidents between 2017 and 2023.

According to statistics, 26% of people injured in transport accidents were in a serious condition and required hospital treatment for more than 24 hours. The rest did not need prolonged treatment.

Causes and threats

• human factor, including negligence, disregard of safety rules, or violation of traffic laws.
• technical factors, including the use of technically unsound means of transport or unforeseen technical breakdowns.
• severe or unexpected changes in weather conditions, increase in extreme weather events.
• continued growth in mileage.
• self-driving cars on the road (events caused by failures of navigation systems).
• intelligent transport systems (ITS) can be exploited in the future to carry out cyber-attacks or attack the systems themselves.

worst-case scenario

A high-speed collision between two buses.

Code of conduct

If you are involved in an accident, or see an accident with people injured, call 112 immediately. As calmly as possible, say what has happened, what you see, where the accident happened, and answer all the questions asked by the rescue officer.

You can find comprehensive instructions on how to act in the event of a road accident on the website of the Estonian Rescue Board: traffic accident opens in a new tab