Meanwhile, the number of vehicles on the road has tripled since the restoration of independence, making the drop in fatalities even more notable.

This progress has been achieved mainly thanks to improvements in passive vehicle safety, not necessarily because the number of accidents has declined.

Contemporary vehicles are safer

"These are fundamentally different cars than those we drove at the beginning of independence, when most vehicles were made in the Soviet Union and lacked even basic safety equipment," Sirk said. "There was no point talking about passive safety in Soviet cars — they were tin boxes. In a serious collision, people were badly injured or killed."

"Last year was exceptional — while the number of seriously injured usually stays between 400 and 450, it dropped as well. This year has again shown how much depends on chance: 12 people died in the first five months, then 10 more in the next month. It's a reminder that we cannot rely on good luck."

Based on European road‑construction standards and Estonia's daily traffic volumes, Estonia does not actually need 2+2 highways, Sirk said. Traffic is sparse enough that 1+1 or 1+2 solutions would be functionally sufficient.

Estonian road conditions are in some respects better than in Latvia and Lithuania, especially on secondary roads, he noted. Neither neighboring country has managed to build all major highways in 2+2 format either.

General speed‑limit reductions have been the "magic wand" for Scandinavian countries, helping them reach the top of Europe and the world in traffic safety — they have half as many fatalities per million inhabitants as Estonia, Sirk said.

Speed reduction saves lives

Pedestrian safety in Tallinn has improved partly because car traffic has been intentionally made more complicated and speeds have been reduced. In a collision at 50 km/h, the probability of death is 70 percent; at 30 km/h, it is 20–30 percent.

Sirk: "The safest speed is zero — then no accidents happen. But the traffic law also states that the purpose of traffic management is to ensure the fastest and smoothest possible movement."

Most drivers follow the rules and trust the system. A small percentage are anarchists who fight against the rules and require strict intervention. But the biggest problem group consists of those who break the rules when the risk of getting caught is low.

Pedestrian and driver behavior has also changed. "Twenty‑five years ago we had to argue about when a driver must yield to a pedestrian. The disputes even reached the Supreme Court — whether the pedestrian must already have stepped onto the road or could still be waiting for the obligation to arise. Today drivers are more cautious toward pedestrians."

Emergency‑medicine data indicate that accidents involving light personal vehicles such as e‑scooters occur several times more often than police records show, because many falls are mistakenly treated as household injuries.

Read the full interview with Indrek Sirk in Estonian.

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