Road safety groups attack spending curbs

Date: 21/05/1998

By Chris Johnstone

LEADING safety campaigners have accused the European Commission of short-changing the public on its promise to cut the death-toll on EU roads.

They say the institution has done nothing to restore the EU's dedicated road safety budget, which was halved last year, with only 5.5 million ecu earmarked for all transport safety projects in 1999 compared with over 8 million ecu in 1997.

Safety organisations argue that this clashes with the higher priority given to road safety by Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock and increased public awareness of the issue following the death last year of Princess Diana.

They also point to statistics which show that one in 80 Europeans is killed in a car accident and one in three injured each year.

The figures reveal wide differences between EU countries, with the UK and Sweden amongst the safest and Portugal and Belgium amongst the most dangerous.

The European Transport Safety Council is calling on the European Parliament to push for past levels of spending to be restored. "The average annual spend on road safety alone up to 1997 has been over 5 million ecu, so 5.5 million ecu to cover all modes just does not make sense," said a spokesman.

Its concerns are echoed by the Alliance Internationale de Tourisme (AIT) and the Fédération Internationale de l'Auto (FIA), which together indirectly represent around 40 million motorists throughout Europe.

Last month, Kinnock flew to Rome to give his personal support to an AIT and FIA campaign to persuade motorists to take basic precautions such as removing loose items in cars, which could become lethal in the event of a crash, and fastening seat belts. The '10-second campaign' was also promoted during last week's Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg.

"We find it very ironic that this 50% cut is taking place now," said AIT/FIA head of campaigns Richard Woods. "We are not so much worried about our own campaigns, but about the effect on the road safety community generally."

The Commission insists, however, that the cut in the dedicated road safety budget can more than be made up by drawing on some of the 400 million ecu available for sustainable mobility in the Fifth Framework Research Programme budget.

"Some of that can be spent on transport and transport safety," said Kinnock's spokeswoman Sarah Lambert, who added that while funding for campaigns would continue, the Commission also wanted to foster basic research and improve its knowledge of safety trends in Europe.

The Commission is also pushing governments to give road safety a higher priority, with suggested measures for cutting the 45,000 deaths and 1.6 million injuries a year on European roads by 2001.

In addition, it is still considering moves to discourage 'irresponsible' advertising which uses speed to sell new cars.