E.T.S.C. - Ambitious Road Safety Targets Needed for 2020
NEWS RELEASE
Embargoed until 14 January 2010
Ambitious Road Safety Targets Needed for 2020
14 January 2010, Brussels–More than a hundred EU road safety experts and stakeholders met today at the European Transport Safety Council’s(1) Safety Lunch(2) to discuss new 2020 targets. The European Commission is expected to publish its 4th Road Safety Action Programme (RSAP) this spring. There has been a 28% reduction in European road deaths between 2001 and 2008(3). If current trends continue road deaths are likely to fall by a third in 2010. ETSC stresses that the adoption of the target in 2001 was essential in reducing the number of deaths. The opportunity to further reduce this by 2020 should not be missed.
Prof. Richard Allsop, presented the ETSC proposal to reduce road deaths and, for the first time, serious injuries by 40% between 2010 and 2020. “The challenging but achievable targets forreducing road deaths and serious injuries by 2020 are based on expert analyses of past trends innumbers of deaths as well as estimated capacity for further improvement” said Richard Allsop, ETSC Board Member. On the issue of seriously injured in the EU he added, “ETSC is deeplyconcerned that the human consequences for those most seriously long term disabled by injury onthe roads, can be as great as or even greater than the consequences of death and bereavement”.
ETSC’s Blueprint for a 4th Road Safety Action Programme(4) proposed a number of new measures focussing on well known risk areas such as speed, drink and drug driving and non seat and child restraint use. Other possible avenues include the application of new life saving technologies, such as intelligent speed assistance or the introduction of improved post accident care with eCall.
These and many other measures included in the ETSC’s Blueprint, if implemented extensively, will allow the EU to achieve new targets in the future.
Target setting is a vital part of improving road safety. ETSC supports an ambitious yet challenging target for the EU. Targets that are based on a comprehensive road safety vision communicate the importance of road safety, motivate stakeholders to act and help stakeholders responsible for the road transport system being accountable for achieving defined results. Targets also indicate that political will is there to make improvements in road safety(5).
At the Lunch the European Commission presented initial outcomes of the recently completed public consultation on the future 4th Road Safety Action Programme. Road safety government officials and experts from Sweden, Portugal and Latvia shared their countries’ experience with the last RSAP, while Bernard Pottier from the French NGO Association Prévention Routière talked about how to engage civil society and increase public awareness.
Today MEPs will also question the new Transport Commissioner and Vice President Designate Kallas in the European Parliament. ETSC’s Executive Director Antonio Avenoso stated: “We havehigh hopes that Commissioner Designate Kallas will place the new Road Safety Action Programmeat the top of his agenda. Alongside the adoption of new ambitious road safety targets for 2020,the time is ripe for implementing new measures to realise the rights of EU citizens’ to safe mobility”.
For more information please contact ETSC Policy Director Ellen Townsend, ellen.townsend@etsc.eu or Communication Manager Evgueni Pogorelov evgueni.pogorelov@etsc.eu, tel. +32 (0)2 230.41.06, mob. +32 (0)485 74 40 23.
Notes to Editors:
(1) The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) is a Brussels-based independent non-profit making organisation dedicated to the reduction of the number and severity of transport crashes in Europe. The ETSC seeks to identify and promote research-based measures with a high safety potential. It brings together 43 national and international organisations concerned with transport safety from across Europe. See www.etsc.eu.
(2) Invitation to ETSC Transport Safety Lunch “Road Safety Target Setting for the EU”
(3) ETSC (2009) 3rd PIN Annual report: 2010 on the Horizon
(4) ETSC’s Blueprint for a 4th Road Safety Action Programme and Addendum
(5) For more information please check the following documents:
‘Towards Zero’, OECD, 2008
ETSC 2006 Methodological Approach to National Road Safety Policies
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