Half way to halving road deaths?

The Mid-term Review of the 3rd Road Safety Action Programme

The Mid-term Review, prepared by the European Commission, is to take in the progress made towards the target of halving road casualties by 2010 in the EU-25. This communication was first announced in the White Paper on European Transport Policy in 2001. The 3rd Road Safety Action Programme then set out specific measures (concerning the improvement of road users' behaviour, making vehicles safer, and improving road infrastructure), also defining a framework to ensure the sharing of responsibilities between all parties concerned. The European Parliament recently gave its response to the 3rd RSAP, showing support for a strong European leadership on road safety. As Europe is passing the 5-year threshold, the European Commission is due to present a report assessing progress made and outlining further efforts. Although the Review was initially due by autumn 2005, its delay was confirmed during the lunch. The Mid-term Review is likely only to be published in the first quarter of 2006.

This report summarises some of the main points addressed during the Transport Safety Lunch:

First findings by the European Commission

E. Grillo Pasquarelli, Director of the Inland Transport Directorate at the European Commission, provided the audience with some information on the current stage of the Mid-term Review. The document will be a substantial report. A first part will present a policy document which will look at the future steps to achieve the target based on impact assessments of EU policies. The other parts will draw country profiles emphasising weaknesses and strengths.

Mr. Pasquarelli was satisfied by the "growing awareness" shown by the different Member States of sharing responsibility in contributing to the 3rd RSAP. However, too often misconception of the subsidiarity principle slows down progress towards the target. Mr. grillo Pasquarelli mentioned, in particular, the case of driving licensing: "There are still about 120 different driving licenses all over Europe. A single Driving license would ease the implementation of effective enforcement policies".

Europe has so far reached about 20% of its target. Hence, assuming a similar type of effort, it is likely that only 40% of the target set will be reached by 2010, instead of 50%. The best performing countries include Denmark, Spain, Germany, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden. Worse performing countries include the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Lithuania, Hungary and Poland.

European policy initiatives are likely to concern a Directive on cross-border enforcement on the TENs network, a Directive on road infrastructure, a Communication on active safety, initiatives in the field of "Fitness to drive", and perhaps an initiative to harmonise the question of alcohol-related driving.

Road safety under the UK Presidency

This Lunch also offered the opportunity to hear from the U.K. as one of the best-performing EU countries on road safety, with the opportunity to extend its experience across Europe during the UK Presidency of the European Union.

Kate Mc Mahon, Head of the Road Safety Unit of the Department for Transport in the UK, informed the audience that Verona III, this year's Transport Ministers' conference on 4-5 November will address the theme of "Lifelong learning on road safety". The sessions of the conference will address the particular problem of work-related road accidents (also when driving to and from work), and the challenges faced by motorcyclists, an especially vulnerable group on road. Lastly, it will also talk about the importance of sharing tasks at all levels of authority, including local authorities.

In terms of sharing knowledge between the UK experience and other countries, the UK mentioned the already existing Transport Forum across Europe to discuss priorities for Member States in the field of transport safety. In Ms. Mc Mahon's opinion the under-performing countries would benefit from first raising political consensus on road safety, then setting challenging but deliverable targets, lastly identifying clear mechanisms to achieve them.

Robert Gifford of PACTS (Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety) mentioned two main failures of UK road safety policy. Firstly, that the UK still endorses the 0.8 BAC limit with Ireland and Luxembourg, which is the highest BAC limit in Europe. Secondly, the introduction of speed cameras has found strong public opposition, to which the authorities were not prepared to react.

Austria - next Presidency

Austria will take on the next EU Presidency (January - June 2006). The audience was eager to learn what Austria intends to do to enhance road safety across Europe.

Klaus Machata, from the Austrian Road Safety Council (KfV), mentioned the lessons learnt by Austria to reduce the number of road fatalities. For instance, its performance in terms of conducting road safety audits did not reap the expected safety benefit. The effort implemented helped then, among others, to reach better management of high risk sites. However, Machata noticed that it takes time for Member States to implement measures from the 3rd Road Safety Action Programme, and that several actions in the field of road safety audits and impact assessments could benefit from European regulation

According to Mr. Machata, Austria will give high priority to road safety under the EU Presidency which starts at the beginning of 2006, organising, among others, a high-level expert meeting to deal with regular road inspections.

The Lunch confirmed that setting a target was vital for the EU, even if it is not yet fully achieved. Important additional steps are to raise the political profile of the issue, work closely with all levels of authorities, set a strategy to follow the target, explain to the public why these measures exist. Also, an important point in the overall objective is to not only care about the target to reduce road fatalities, but also to reduce the number of seriously injured people.

It is important that the European Commission comes up with initiatives in the field of infrastructure and cross-border enforcement, as promised. Moreover, reaching 20% of the EU target is by far not enough. There are therefore other measures needed, such as further developing best practice guidelines in the fields of urban safety management, speed reduction and low cost measures and safety audit, or also the mandatory introduction of day-time running lights. The so-called "Vatanen Report" presented by Dieter-L. Koch (MEP) during the Lunch is very helpful as it indicates several measures the Mid-term Review could gain inspiration from when making its recommendations.

Lastly, in the eyes of ETSC, ensuring that the review of the programme is rigorous and follows a review of the common transport policy is a worthy aim, but further delaying both the review and actions that are both known to be needed and previously promised would fail to demonstrate political leadership.

ETSC warmly thanks all sponsors who, through their support, contribute to help ETSC fullfilling its objectives. Thanks to that help ETSC's fourth lunch was a great success. ETSC maintains its independence through funding from a variety of sources including membership subscriptions, European Commission grants, and public and private sector support for various activities.