In 2024, 13,581 traffic casualties in Belgium were hospitalized following a traffic accident. Of these casualties, 3,232 people suffered serious injuries. 

That is 7% fewer than in 2023, and 17% fewer than in 2016, while total hospitalizations fell by 17%. The figures come from a new report published by Vias, the Belgian road safety institute.

The new Vias analysis of hospital data shows that cyclists now account for almost half of all seriously injured road casualties in Belgium, while serious injuries among car occupants have fallen sharply.

In 2016, cyclists represented 37% of Belgium’s serious casualties. In 2024, they represented 49%, essentially one in two. Car occupant hospitalizations have fallen an impressive 43% since 2016, although serious injuries ticked up 3% in 2024. Powered two-wheeler serious injuries dropped 22% in a single year.

Blind spot

The report also exposes a large blind spot in conventional accident statistics: Vias says the number of hospitalized road casualties was four times higher than the number recorded as seriously injured in the police accident database. Almost nine out of ten hospitalized casualties spent at least one night in hospital.

The biggest shift is between cars and bicycles. Serious injuries among car occupants fell by 37% between 2016 and 2024. Among cyclists, serious injuries rose by 21%, from 1,307 to 1,588.

Aging is definitely becoming part of the road-safety problem. People aged 40-64 account for 37% of all serious injuries, while 65+ account for another 30%. More than half of serious injuries among both these age groups are to cyclists. In both groups, more than half of the seriously injured are cyclists.

Since 2016, serious injuries rose by 6% among over-65s, while most younger age groups improved. But among 65+ road users, the rate of serious injuries increased by 6%. That is one of the few age categories moving in the wrong direction.

Dangerous combination

At least 43% of seriously injured cyclists were registered as having crashed without another road user. Safer cycling is therefore not only about separating bikes from cars.

Road surfaces, curbs, bollards, cycle-path design, bicycle stability, and speed all become important, particularly as the population ages and e-bikes allow people to cycle further and faster. The combination – aging population + more cycling + growing e-bike use – is likely to become increasingly important.

E-bikes can be identified separately in Belgian hospital data only since 2024. They accounted for 13% of seriously injured cyclists, but Vias warns that the true share is likely higher because bicycle type is often not recorded correctly.

Belgium and neighboring countries

Belgium is not the only country with this accident trend. The trend is most advanced in the Netherlands. SWOV, the Dutch National Scientific Institute for Road Safety Research, calculated that almost 5,500 cyclists suffered serious injuries in 2022, around 70% of all seriously injured road users. Belgium is beginning to show a pattern of injuries similar to that of the Netherlands.

France shows the same shift, though less dramatically. Germany also recorded its lowest number of seriously injured road users since records began in 1991 in 2024, but 13,919 cyclists were still seriously injured, while almost two-thirds of cyclists killed were 65 or older.

In Luxembourg, road deaths dropped dramatically, but the number of people classified nationally as seriously injured remained more or less at the same level — essentially no improvement.

The trend is similar across the three countries: car occupants become safer, while vulnerable road users, especially older cyclists, make up an increasing share of the remaining injury burden.

All for Zero Plan

The good news is that 2023 and 2024 show a renewed downward trend after the post-COVID rebound. The bad news is that Belgium is nowhere near its 2030 target. Belgium’s improvement is real, but insufficient.

The federal objective, the federal All for Zero plan, is a 50% reduction in serious injuries by 2030 compared with 2019. Vias calculates that serious injuries would still have to fall by another 44% between 2024 and 2030.

Belgian road safety is succeeding at preventing deaths considerably faster than it is preventing disability. And the center of gravity is shifting from car occupants toward cyclists, particularly middle-aged and older cyclists.