(BRUSSELS) - The streets of Berlin and the boulevards of Paris are the safest roads in all the European capitals, according to a study published Wednesday, while Vilnius and Ljubljana have the worst safety records.

The good news was that the number of road deaths in European capitals last year dropped from 1,881 to 1,560.

Berlin's road death rate per 100,000 residents stood at 1.64 in 2007, with Paris at 1.70, according to the European Tansport Safety Council (ETSC) figures.

Helsinki and Oslo also registered death rates of under two percent per 100,000 people.

At the other end of the safety scale, the Slovenian capital Ljubljana took the unwanted title of most dangerous European traffic capital, with 12.98 fatalities per 100,000 residents.

It was closely followed by the Lithuanian capital Vilnius at 12.09 last year.

Off the chart was the tiny Maltese capital of Valletta, with its narrow one-way streets, where there has been no road death since 2001.

An ETSC spokeswoman said the results of the study were "largely encouraging" with road-death risk in the capitals half of that elsewhere in the country.

However cyclists and pedestrians were particularly at risk, accounting for one in two road victims.

The study also looked at the most improved road accident rates with Lisbon, Oslo, Stockholm and Paris all reducing their death rates by at least 10 percent in the 2001-2007 period.

However the risks rose over the same period in Vilnius, Bucharest and Ljubljana.

The transport safety council outlined several measures to bring the number of road deaths down, including promoting the decentralisation of activities so that they could be reached by bicycle or on foot.

Other recommendations included improving the quality of public transport and discouraging access by car where there were reasonable alternatives -- a measure which would include a London-style traffic congestion charge.

Athens saw the largest number of deaths on its roads in 2007 at 226, closely followed, despite the congestion charge, by London with 222.

ETSC - European Transport Safety Council (ETSC)

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