Fresh drive to curb accidents on EU roads

Date: 14/03/1996

By Michael Mann

ROAD safety is firmly back on the EU's agenda, with all the major players beginning to stake out their territory.

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) is pressing for a major review of the Commission's 1993 Action Programme on Road Safety, which it greeted as a crucial first step but insufficient to significantly reduce the number of casualties on Europe's roads.

The motor industry - in the shape of Fiat - is now also looking to set the agenda by launching a Green Book on road safety next Monday (18 March). Both Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock and chairman of the European Parliament's transport committee Petrus Cornelissen will speak at the event.

As part of the Commission's new drive to reduce the death and injury toll from accidents, an ETSC working party has received funding from the Directorate-General for transport (DGVII) to suggest a targeted EU road safety plan, which it hopes to present by autumn 1996.

To fuel the debate, the ETSC is hosting a symposium on 29 March on “Strategies for Road Safety”.

The group is calling on the Commission to deliver the highest possible safety standards for both vehicles and road construction, and to introduce legislation for cross-border traffic covering upper limits on blood alcohol levels, vehicle speeds and safety impact assessments.

The ETSC believes that the EU also has a role to play in encouraging best practice and improving research and the gathering of data.

If serious progress is to be made in reducing the number of casualties, there is a need for definitive targets, according to ETSC executive director Jeanne Breen. The group suggests aiming for a 30&percent; reduction in road deaths by 2010, compared to the 1991-1993 average, and says much of the required improvement could be achieved in those areas, such as crash protection standards, where the EU has exclusive competence.

ETSC claims that there are over 45,000 deaths and 1.5 million hospitalised casualties resulting from traffic accidents every year throughout the member states. It puts the economic cost of these statistics at about 70 billion ecu and says “twice the amount of working life is lost from motor vehicle accidents than from diseases such as lung cancer”.

Among the member states, Portugal, Greece and Spain form the highest risk group, with the Nordic countries, the Netherlands and the UK at the other extreme.