Utilisation du mot "fatalité" pour designer mort (comme le mot anglais "fatality")

Question

One of definitions of "fatality" is:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fatality ; https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fatality

a death caused by an accident or by violence, or someone who has died in either of these ways

Can one use in this way the French word "fatalité"? I have seen several dictionaries and it seems to me that in this context the two words are false cognates.

Nevertheless, even as an anglicism, if one says:

Il y a des milliers de fatalités sur les routes

conveying

There are thousands of traffic fatalities

would he be understood?

Answer 1

In French, "fatalité" is used to translate the English word "fate" (Larousse). So, saying:

Il y a des milliers de fatalités sur les routes.

would not convey the same meaning as using "fatalities" in English. You would use the word "décès" or "morts."
A common way of being a little less explicit when talking about death is to say "accidents mortels," referring to the accident rather than the person (note that in that case, the total number of deaths could differ from the number of accidents, so use this phrase carefully).

Answer 2

Another suggestion:

Chaque année, il y a des milliers de vies brisées sur les routes.

However, that generally also includes people who survived accidents but whose destiny has been broken because of them.