Spain among top countries for road safety

Spain was among six EU countries with fewer than 40 fatalities per million inhabitants and showed greater improvement compared to other countries, according to the report.

Though the number of road deaths remained constant at 36 deaths per million inhabitants for both 2013 and 2014, Spain has seen a reduction in fatalities by 32 percent since 2010, when the country reported 53 deaths per million.

Across Europe, the level of change was small, with overall road fatalities decreasing by 1 percent between 2013 and 2014, compared to a drop of 8 percent between 2012 and 2013.

"Following two years of solid decreases in the number of people killed on Europe's roads, the first reports on road deaths in 2014 are disappointing," the commission said in a press release.

The total number of road deaths was 25,700 over all 28 EU member states, which was 5,700 fewer fatalities than in 2010, but still short of the goal.

"It's sad and hard to accept that almost 70 Europeans die on our roads every day, with many more being seriously injured," said EU Commissioner of Transport Violeta Bulc in a statement. "The figures published today should be a wake-up call. Behind the figures and statistics there are grieving spouses, parents, children, siblings, colleagues and friends. They also remind us that road safety requires constant attention and further efforts."

Spain did better than the European average for fatalities of about 51 per million inhabitants. The safest countries were Malta (26 deaths per million), the Netherlands (28), Sweden (29) and the United Kingdom (29).

The most dangerous were Bulgaria (90), Latvia (106), Lithuania (90) and Romania (91).

Spain was also one of the safest countries for cyclists, who made up only 4 percent of deaths in 2013, the most recent year for data. Only Greece surpassed Spain for cyclist safety with just 2 percent of deaths being cyclists.

The EU said it aims to cut the number of road deaths reported in 2010 in half by 2020.