Forum demands 'new roads to safety'

Publication date: 20 October 2008

On 7 October, the Forum for the Automobile and Society debated the stagnation in road safety improvements across Europe. Reductions are not going fast enough and the target to halve road deaths by 50 per cent by 2010 will not be met if efforts are not stepped up.

Ari Vatanen MEP, who chaired the debate, challenged European Commission Vice President Antonio Tajani, responsible for Transport and road safety, and a range of stakeholders to outline their visions of what new approaches should be undertaken to radically improve the rate of reductions in road fatalities set in 2001.

Vatanen said: "Across the European Union, if the current 'business as usual model' is maintained, only France, Portugal and Luxembourg will achieve the road safety target set in 2001 of a 50 per cent reduction in road fatalities and serious injuries by 2010. My message to the other member states is to follow their example urgently. No death is acceptable".

Most European Union countries have fallen behind this target and some, such as Romania and Slovenia, have experienced increases in road deaths.

Commissioner Tajani stressed his commitment to road safety and said that these challenges have to be addressed with a range of complimentary measures: "There is no point in having rules if they are not respected and they will not be respected if they are not enforced."

Hence, the Commission's proposed new EU law on cross border enforcement of sanctions for breaches of road safety rules. On this subject Tajani thanked the French presidency for its support and called on all Member states to do likewise.

He further went on to explain that respect for rules needs to be explained to young people, who are the very group most likely to be involved in road accidents but also the hardest to reach with road safety messages. This is the reason influential role models for young people, like Formula One Driver Kimi Räikkönen, have been recruited by the Commission.

During the rest of the Forum delegates heard from the French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau, Wil Botman of the FIA European Bureau, John Dawson of EuroRAP, the European Transport Safety Council, ACEM the motor cycle constructors and TISPOL (the Road Transport police federation).

The Forum ended on an upbeat note with everyone expecting 2008 accidents figures to be an improvement on 2007. One beacon of light already on record for 2008 is the UK where the number of fatalities dropped below 3,000 for the first time. A sign of improvement, but as the meeting concluded, more is still needed and efforts cannot be dropped.