Deadly greek roads: the EU jumps to the rescue

A shocking accident with a Porsche out of control on the highway Athens - Lamia in central Greece in which three young adults and a toddler found tragic death became a leading story for quite some time in national news. The luxurious car lost control before exiting the highway and crashed into a parked car at a rest stop killing a young mother and her 3-year old child. The parked car was hit while in a parking space outside of a public restroom, where the father of the three-year-old and husband of the 33-year-old woman had stopped to use the facilities. They were waiting for him to return when impact occurred.

In early 2016 another car accident came to the spotlight. Pantelis Pantelidis, one of Greece’s most popular young singers, was killed in a car crash. The 32-year-old was driving on a southern Athens avenue when he lost control of his car early in the morning.

Both incidents have spurred an extensive discussion in the -stricken by deep recession country- about whether the roads are indeed safe. Data from OECD actually indicate that most deadly cars accidents occurred in greek roads in the late 90s. But does this mean things have gotten significantly better?

However, statistics from the European Commission on exact number of fatalities since 1991 give a different perspective. Numbers for the vast majority of European countries are indeed down in comparison to the 90s but deaths from car accidents in Greece are currently higher than any other European nation with similar population. Furthermore, according to PwC’s analysis on infrastructure in the country published in 2017, Greece is ranked 26th among the EU countries in terms of infrastructure quality, along with systematic low infrastructure quality countries, mostly in Southern Europe.

As a matter of fact, when counting road fatalities per one million inhabitants Greece finds itself on the ninth position worldwide, ahead of even the US!

Prior to the economic crisis Greece was among the top 5 countries on earth in the consumption of private vehicles per capita reflecting its citizens' lust for the wheel even if that meant they had to be deprived of other goods. Only Canada, Ireland, Norway and Denmark surpassed Greece up until 2009. In fact, Greeks used to buy more of cars per capita than many of their European neighbors.

But when the economy collapsed, the country became a vast graveyard of abandoned automobiles. In the last few days of each year, many people line up to turn in their license plates in advance of a new tax on cars that the government typically always allows the deadline to stretch into the new year.

But this development didn't mean Greeks necessarily drove less. It's more likely that during the years that followed, roads got filled mostly with used cars which in many cases haven't been properly repaired as Greeks have been trying to avoid maintenance costs.

According to a February 2017 Kathimerini newspaper report, public organizations keep in use vehicles that should have been scrapped years ago. It is indicative that most ambulances of the National Health System are hardly operational and in many cases they break down on the road carrying a patient. The same applies to Greece’s public transportation fleet, amounting to a total of 2,000 buses. Public transportation officials say that about 1,000 of them are worn out beyond repair due to rust and serious engine problems. The average age of public buses is 13 years, as 40% of the fleet started running between 1998 and 2002. Greek police vehicles are no exception. The total fleet of Hellenic Police consists of about 12,700 vehicles, including motorcycles and about half of them are not operational.

But not spending money on a new vehicle fleet seems to be going hand by hand with an underinvestment tendency in infrastructure. A new dataset from OECD with figures about road infrastructure in various countries sheds further light on the increasing lack of investments in this field. Europe's low investment rate has apparently left its infrastructure creaking and Greece hasn't been an exception. The country is clearly trailing in the corresponding list in which China, the US, Japan and only Germany from Europe have secured a front seat.

Actually, the infrastructure investment gap is between 0.8 percent of GDP (against the European average) or 1.4 percent of GDP (against historical performance) translating into 1.1% or € 2bn new spending per year.

Based on data from the OECD we draw the conclusion that investments in railway infrastructure are also declining in Greece after the 2004 Olympics. That seemingly doesn't give an incentive to Greeks to abandon their deep rooted preference to a private vehicle, which increases the risk of fatal accidents given the fact that new investments in roads are also, not at the level they should be.

In January 2017, Greece wrapped up the sale of its struggling rail operator TrainOSE to Italy’s state railway company as the country’s government came under pressure from bailout lenders to accelerate its privatization program. The sale to Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane will bring in only €45m but estimates are it completes a series of infrastructure sales to international investors that will boost Greece’s role as a transport and tourism hub for the eastern Mediterranean.

In March 2017 the EU announced that over €1.3 billion of Cohesion Policy funds will be invested in ten broadband, transport and environmental projects in Greece. More specifically, €377 million will be directed to urban public transport systems in Athens and the region of Attica, over €730 million to the extension of the metro in Thessaloniki, while almost €50 million to sustainable mobility in the Peloponnese peninsula, in the south of Greece. Lastly, €92 million will be invested to achieve better connectivity in the North of Greece.

But could there be a positive takeaway from the dire findings? Apparently yes, says the PwC report, according to which infrastructure investments in Greece have an economic multiplier of around 1.8x. That means it can boost demand of other sectors and lead Greek economy to growth. This measurement specifically indicates that for every euro spent on infrastructure, GDP is further increased by €0.8.