Greece’s poor performance on road safety can be reversed
Greece’s unenviable position as one of the worst performers on road safety in the EU is not inevitable and can be improved. That was the mainmessage in an event held in Athens by the Greek Presidency of the EU together with the Greek Road Safety Institute (Panos Mylonas) and the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) in the context of ETSC’s PIN program and RSI’s 7thNational Road Safety Week.
The event was hosted by the European Representation in Greece, with the participation of delegates from the Greek Government, Greek Traffic Police Headquarters and the Hellenic Airforce, private companies and volunteer organizations.
During the event multiple issues were presented concerning Greece’s performance and future on road safety. In the context of his presentation, the Executive Director of ETSC, Mr. Antonio Avenoso quoted: “There is nothing inevitable about the tragedies occurring on Greek roads every year. Other countries including Latvia, Portugal and Spain have made significant progress by adopting measures that are also appropriate in Greece such as the systematic enforcement of speeding and drink and drive and the gradual redesign of the urban and interurban road infrastructure following the principles of safe system approach (forgiving roads without surprises). Especially in Greece, the increase of power two wheelers helmet wearing rate from today's less than 70% to 95% (EU average) might save up to 200 lives (out of a total of 950) annually!"
“Greece needs to urgently translate the national strategic plan into concrete road safety action plans signed off by all political parties and implemented sincerely and efficiently. Performance monitoring and public accountability of authorities and politicians are the keys to success. This is not just a question of budget, it is a question of political will to work seriously for the reduction of traffic casualties in Greece.”
Vassiliki Danelli-Mylona, President of the Board of Directors of the Greek Road Safety Institute (Panos Mylonas) said: “For the last 40 years, road safety was never Government’s priority. Therefore, valuable time has been lost. At the same time, vehicle fleet, traffic and transport volumes increased, whereas infrastructure did not follow.
It is well known that thousands of lives are lost, while most of them are young people. RSI Panos Mylonas envisages and aims to a world without traffic fatalities. RSI focuses on actions that aim to improve the situation based on 2 pillars, education and culture, because road safety in a country is an indicator of cultural prosperity”.
As part of the important event, the RSI “Panos Mylonas” offered prizes to the Best Traffic Police Officers for the year 2013 and to its Volunteers that mostly helped in actions, during the past year.
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