Report positive on impact of EU road infrastructure safety rules

A major review of EU road infrastructure safety management legislation has found that the impact has been positive for road safety in a number of key areas. Extending the legislation to cover national roads as well as the trans-European road network currently covered would also save more lives according to the analysis.  A number of countries are already doing this.

The report found that many countries have not encountered difficulties in the application of the directive. Furthermore, evidence suggests that Member States with poorer pre-directive levels of road safety performance are those where the application of the directive has been more robust.

The authors also say the directive has led to an improved and much more consistent regulatory framework compared with the prior system of national legislation.  The directive has also increased the use of cost-effective procedures e.g. road safety audits (RSAs) and Road Safety Inspections (RSIs), the report concludes.  It has also successfully led to a process that can lead to corrections of detected road infrastructure deficiencies both on new roads and existing roads.

See study

• Improved road markings can dramatically reduce driving errors in wet and dark conditions according to new EU-funded research. A conference in Brussels last month, part of the Rainvision project, heard results from a driving simulator test in France. The trial investigated the influence of road markings on driver error (involuntary run-off-the-road and lane departures) under wet and rainy night time conditions. For a simulated rural road combining straight sections and curves, 40% less driving errors were observed with wet-night visible road markings compared to standard markings. The biggest gap was observed for elderly drivers. A second test track trial in Austria confirmed the findings.