ACEA

Road Safety Directive must be reviewed by EP Committee

Step might save directive, which will help improving safety on Europe's roads

The European Parliament has asked its Transport Committee (Tran) to review its position on the proposed “Directive on Safe Road Infrastructure Management”, The Committee had dismissed the proposal in June with a majority of only one vote.

Despite several years of preparation by the European Commission, plus  extensive internal and external consultations, an exchange of national expertise and the close involvement and support of major civil society stakeholders such as the European automobile industry, the affirmative report drafted by the EP Committee’s rapporteur had been swept away in one single blow. Now, the Parliament has decided to give the proposal a second chance.

The proposed directive is an important contribution to achieving an integrated policy approach towards road safety in Europe. According to the impact assessment to the proposed directive, at least 600 deaths and 7,000 serious injuries would be prevented annually if safety is integrated in all phases of road planning, design, construction, operation & maintenance. This corresponds to up to 16% of fatalities and 12% of injury accidents.

Road safety is a priority for the European vehicle manufacturers and it is clear that technological improvements will continue to be made and developed. The European automobile industry has achieved a lot over the past decades to reduce fatalities and injuries on Europe’s roads through devices such as seatbelts, ABS and airbags. As a result fatalities have halved while traffic has trebled. The number of road casualties, however, still remains too high.

Vehicle manufacturers know from their research that the full potential of casualty reduction is only possible if an integrated approach is adopted that combines vehicle safety with efforts to improve infrastructure design and maintenance, and that addresses driver behaviour. So far, little has been done on road infrastructure safety, although infrastructure is not just merely the neutral context in which accidents happen.

Developing and maintaining infrastructure deserves the utmost effort by the European institutions and Member States. The European road safety targets set in 2001 (a 50% reduction in fatalities by 2010) might not be met unless road authorities rise up to the challenge of absorbing increasing road traffic, while offering safer driving conditions to all road users.

The European Commission's proposed directive offers Member States a toolkit of safety management procedures and direct the way to ensure that Europe overcomes today's unacceptable patchwork of national standards resulting from decades of under-investment, which needlessly put lives at risk.

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