Baltic lags behind in cutting road deaths

For many years France had an appalling record on road safety. Lax enforcement of road-traffic rules, speeding and the social acceptance of drink-driving meant that many more people were killed in traffic accidents on French roads than in neighbouring countries.

But in 2002 the government decided to act. Jacques Chirac, the then French president, made road safety one of his top priorities. The effect of the resulting initiatives was dramatic. By 2004 the number of people killed in road accidents had fallen by almost 40%, from 7,800 in 2002 to 4,900 in 2004.

These days, the countries of central and eastern Europe are the most dangerous parts of Europe for road travel. In 2006, Lithuania had 223 fatalities per million of population, compared to just 45 per million in the Netherlands. In 2001-06, road deaths went up in Lithuania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Estonia and Romania.

The European Commission argues that action from Brussels puts pressure on laggards and in 2003 it drew up its third Road Safety Action Plan. A Commission official says it was "the trigger" for other countries to draw up their own plans: Estonia (2003), the Czech Republic (2004), Slovakia (2005). The result of the Czech Republic’s efforts was a fall in deaths of 10% in 2005-06. The Czechs have since added more road safety initiatives. In 2006, for example, the Czech government introduced tougher sanctions for all road-traffic offences.

Luxembourg and Portugal have also improved their record on road safety. In 2006, road deaths fell by more than one-fifth in Portugal, attributed to better design of high-speed roads and a small fall in traffic volume. Luxembourg’s positive figures come from tough new traffic laws that give police the powers to confiscate driving licences on the spot for drink-driving offences.

Reductions in deaths come from a combination of tougher laws, better-designed roads and improvements in vehicles. But differences within countries remain, in particular in the approach to tackling drink-driving. Across the EU, drink-driving rules vary considerably. In Malta drivers can drink a couple of glasses of wine or beer, the legal limit is set at 0.9 millilitres of alcohol per milligram of blood (mg/ml), whereas in the Czech Republic drivers must not drink any alcohol. And the tough Czech approach seems to have paid off: less than 5% (4.8%) of deaths are caused by alcohol, the lowest number of deaths caused by drink-driving in the EU.

But strict limits do not always translate into a lower proportion of deaths from drink driving. In Sweden the blood alcohol limit is very stringent (0.2% mg/ml), but a quarter of road deaths are caused by drink driving. In contrast, the UK (0.8 ml/mg) allows its drivers to consume four times as much alcohol as in Sweden, but the proportion of road deaths caused by drink driving is smaller at 17%.

The European Commission has given up trying to harmonise the EU’s drink-driving laws, after 13 years of fruitless wrangling. Countries with tougher limits did not want to reduce their rules to a common standard, arguing that they would send the wrong signal to their citizens. There are no plans to revive this proposal, although some in the Commission would like to do so. Through its road-safety policy, the EU can encourage best practice, cajole countries with awards and targets, but it cannot force them to get into line with the Commission’s view of best practice.

For many years France had an appalling record on road safety. Lax enforcement of road-traffic rules, speeding and the social acceptance of drink-driving meant that many more people were killed in traffic accidents on French roads than in neighbouring countries.