News
On the second UNESCO International Day of Education, a new report by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), the Flemish Foundation for Traffic Knowledge (VSV) and Fundación MAPFRE highlights 17 key principles for delivering effective road safety education in Europe. Education is an essential part of the “Safe System approach” to road safety. European countries have committed to providing traffic safety and mobility education, notably in schools at all levels. However, a previous report by the same authors showed that the provision of such […]
The Dutch alcohol interlock programme was twice as effective as other sanctions at reducing recidivism, and the effects continued after participation in the scheme, according to new research by the Dutch Ministry of Justice research centre (WODC). According to the researchers, 4% of those who followed the programme were re-convicted of a drink-driving offence within two years, compared to 8% for a control group who faced other sanctions. An education programme for drink-driving offenders had a recidivism rate of 7%, compared to 9% for […]
The Italian government has announced an agreement between the Ministry of Interior and the National Association of Italian Municipalities (ANCI) to increase road traffic enforcement by engaging city police in tasks previously assigned to traffic police and national police. The agreement, announced earlier this month, followed the deaths of seven German tourists, killed by a single drink-driver in the ski resort of Lutago outside a night club. 11 others were injured in the crash. Road deaths increased last year in Italy according to the […]
The Irish Road Safety Authority (RSA) says new figures show that drug driving is a major problem on Ireland’s roads. Cannabis is now not far behind alcohol in blood and urine samples examined by the Irish Medical Bureau of Road Safety (MBRS), according to the RSA. According to the new data, 68% of drivers with a positive roadside drug test, between April 2017 and July 2019, had a positive test for cannabis. Cocaine follows closely behind as the main illicit drug detected after cannabis, […]
The Lithuanian Ministry of Transport has launched an alcohol interlock programme as a pathway to a shorter driving ban for high-level drink-driving offenders. From 1 January, convicted drink-drivers who have lost their driving license will, after a set period of time, be able to apply for their license to be reinstated with provision that they only drive a vehicle fitted with an alcohol interlock. “I hope that the introduction of the alcohol interlock system will reduce the number of repeat offences of those who […]
The European Union should introduce a zero-tolerance drink-driving limit in 2020 as part of a package of measures to help prevent up to 5,000 alcohol-linked road deaths every year, according to the European Transport Safety Council, authors of a new report. The EU has recently set a target to reduce deaths and serious injuries on the road by half by 2030 (1). A quarter of the 25,000 EU road deaths each year are likely to be linked to alcohol, according to European Commission estimates. […]
ETSC has welcomed a new report by the Dutch Safety Board that warns of multiple safety risks posed by advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) such as Tesla Autopilot. The conclusion of a two-year long investigation which encompassed multiple real-world crash investigations, the report raises a number of questions about the safety of ADAS systems, notably those that combine features such as automated cruise control with lane keeping and automated braking. Among the issues raised by the report are: – human factor problems such as […]
Adina-Ioana Vălean, a Romanian politician, MEP and chair of the European Parliament’s Industry committee will take over from Violeta Bulc as European Commissioner for Transport from 1 December. Mrs Vălean was approved for the role at a European Parliament hearing on 14 November. In her opening statement to MEPs she said: “25 000 [deaths] per year is simply unacceptable. We should share the objective of halving the number of road deaths and serious injuries by 2030 compared to 2020.” Later at the same hearing, […]
New minimum vehicle and pedestrian safety standards have been formally approved by EU Member States following a political agreement reached with the European Parliament in March. The legislation was formally signed by representatives of the European Council and Parliament at a ceremony on 27 November. New cars, vans, lorries and buses sold in Europe will be fitted as standard with a range of new vehicle safety features, starting in 2022, according to the updated “General Safety Regulation” requirements. After years of research, advocacy and […]
Transport for London (TfL) has said it will not grant Uber a new taxi operator’s licence which could lead to the service being suspended. TfL said it had identified a “pattern of failures” by the company including several breaches that placed passengers and their safety at risk. Despite Uber having addressed some of these issues, TfL said it does not have confidence that similar issues will not reoccur in the future, which has led it to conclude that the company is not “fit and […]
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has called on the US federal government to create a review process before allowing automated test vehicles to operate on public roads, based upon the agency’s investigation of a fatal collision between an Uber automated test vehicle and a pedestrian. During a board meeting held to determine the probable cause of the Arizona crash on 18 March 2018, the NTSB said Uber’s “inadequate safety culture” contributed to the fatal collision between an Uber automated test vehicle and […]
Almost the whole of the Belgian capital will be covered by 30 km/h limits from January 2021 the city’s new minister of transport has confirmed. The announcement of the policy was accompanied by the news that automated speed enforcement capacity in the city will be increased and 30 high risk sites will be treated. A publicity campaign encouraging drivers to respect the new limit ahead of its formal launch has also been running across the city since the announcement. Public pressure for road safety […]
Commenting on the Dutch government’s plans to decrease the speed limit on motorways during daytime from 130 km/h to 100 km/h, Antonio Avenoso, Executive Director of the European Transport Safety Council commented: “Higher speeds are always associated with a higher frequency of collisions and more severe consequences. So a reduction in speeds on Dutch motorways will save lives. That’s to be welcomed, especially as motorway deaths in the Netherlands reached their highest level in a decade last year. (1) “However, it is important to […]
The Polish Prime Minister has promised to make road safety a priority. In a Facebook post on 29 October Mateusz Morawiecki said “A comprehensive plan for the radical improvement of road safety will be one of the government’s priorities in the new term.” Road safety protests were sparked in Warsaw last month after a fatal collision between a BMW car – reportedly being driven at 130 km/h on a road where the speed limit was 50 km/h – and a man pushing a baby […]
ETSC has launched a short video explaining why the EU needs a common drink-driving limit set at zero. Watch/share on YouTube and Twitter.
ETSC is linking up with 15 organisations to call for the setting-up of a new European Parliamentary “intergroup” to work on sustainable and safe active mobility. Intergroups are unofficial working groups of MEPs, organised around topics of common interest that may not be well covered by official committees. 52 MEPs from across the political spectrum have so-far said they would support the intergroup. ETSC’s role will be to advise the group on how the ongoing shift towards more sustainable and healthy transport modes can […]
The entry-into-force of a new law in Finland to permit children as young as 15 to drive regular cars fitted with speed limiters has been postponed following an intervention by the European Commission. The proposals, put forward last year by the government, would have allowed children to drive cars up to 1500kg at speeds of up to 60 km/h and with only an AM category license – normally reserved for mopeds and light quadricycles. The original legal proposal set a speed limit of 45 […]
ETSC has welcomed a number of aspects of the EU’s ten-year action plan on road safety, published in June. But ETSC also suggests, in a briefing published earlier this month, that a number of areas will require bolder action in order to reach the ambitious targets set out in the Commission’s plan. The ETSC report highlights the following elements of the Commission’s proposals that are particularly welcome: A new target to halve road deaths between 2020 and 2030 as well as, for the first […]
A growing number of French regional authorities (départements) are going back on plans to raise some rural road speed limits from 80 km/h to 90. France reduced the national speed limit on 400,000 km of unseparated rural roads from 90km/h to 80 in July last year – a move which led to the prevention of 206 deaths in one year, according to official figures. But the French government announced in May that it would modify the law to enable local authorities to raise the […]
Poland is the eighth European country to implement an “emergency corridor” system to clear the way for emergency vehicles on congested roads. The system, which has been shown to reduce response times by 4 minutes, and increase survival rates by 40%, is already used in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Switzerland but was not widely known outside of those countries. The system was a focus of ETSC’s REVIVE project on improving post-collision response and was presented at a number of […]