Road Safety Exchange: Twelve EU Member States team up to improve road safety
Road Safety Exchange: Twelve EU Member States team up to tackle challenges including speeding, infrastructure safety and improving the safety of pedestrians and cyclists.
Twelve EU Member States are joining forces to share smart ideas for improving road safety, as part of a new EU-funded project, launching today in Brussels. Although European roads are the safest in the world and although road safety has improved greatly in recent decades, the number of deaths and serious injuries on our roads is still far too high. In 2018, there were over 25,000 fatalities in road accidents. While this is a decrease of 21% compared to 2010, it represents only a 1% decrease compared to 2017.
There are important differences in the road safety performance of the different EU Member States. The three-year EU Road Safety Exchange project aims to tackle these disparities and will link up experts from Austria, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Ireland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden.
Transport experts from the twelve participating countries will work together to share best practice on reducing speed, building safe infrastructure and improve enforcement, data collection, as well as the safety of pedestrians and cyclists in urban areas.
European Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc commented: “We have to work together to get to Vision Zero – zero deaths and injuries on our roads by 2050 – and this means twinning and exchange of best practices. The EU Road Safety Exchange project will provide valuable help to initially six EU Member States keen to improve their road safety performance over a three-year period. In combining a high level of political involvement with lasting exchanges between national experts, this project is a unique opportunity to tackle challenges including speeding, infrastructure safety and improving the safety of vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists.”
The project is being managed by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), a leading NGO on transport safety that works with road safety experts from across the EU.
Antonio Avenoso, Executive Director of ETSC said: “This project is all about showing how effective road safety policies work in the real world. We will bring together experts so they can help each other figure out how to deliver similar results in their own countries. We’re delighted that so many Member States were keen to get on board, and we can’t wait to see the results.”
Background
The European Commission and the EU Member States have signed up to a new target of reducing fatalities and serious injuries on the roads by 50% between 2020 and 2030. In this context, the Commission has launched the ‘EU Road Safety Exchange’ project, funded by the European Parliament, that aims to contribute to closing the road safety gap between EU Member States by providing support to a number of countries with a high potential to improve their road safety and thereby contributing to the reduction in the overall number of deaths and serious injuries on Europe’s roads.