Latvia (6) -- Analyses-- July-September 2006

Repse temporarily halts pre-election campaign

27.09.2006

Speaking to reporters the next day, Repse, who heads the right-wing New Era party, described the accident as “unavoidable” since a truck in the opposite lane prevented him from swerving out of the way. State police said the driver of the truck corroborated Repse’s statement. The former prime minister, who had been active on the campaign trail prior to the tragedy, said he had not been under the influence of alcohol. Police said he passed a breath-test on the spot. The incident occurred the same day that Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency, released its annual report of passenger car ownership and fatalities in the 25-nation bloc. Latvia managed to maintain the ignominy of having the highest road-related death-rate, or 222 per 1 million inhabitants, according to 2004 data. Lithuania, whose roads have become increasingly dangerous over the past couple years, was right behind its Baltic neighbor with 218 accident-related fatalities per 1 million residents. Estonia, which has much better roads than either Latvia or Lithuania, registered 126 deaths, while the safest streets in the EU (barring Malta) are in the Netherlands. There the road-related deaths amounted to 49 per 1 million inhabitants. According to the Eurostat report, Latvia and Lithuania lead the EU in terms of growth of passenger vehicles per 100,000 residents. The number of registered cars in Lithuania and Latvia grew 167 and 142 percent respectively from 1990 to 2004.

Beginning***Europe