Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-17-Speech-3-291"
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"en.20010117.9.3-291"2
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"Mr President, we shall be voting in favour of the report on priorities in EU road safety, as it includes a number of practical measures which may reduce, at least slightly, the number of deaths in road accidents. It is deplorable that road accidents represent the most common cause of death amongst children and adults under 45 years. However, although most of the measures are positive, they target motorists alone, thus absolving car manufacturers as well as the government, and society in general, of any responsibility.
What is the point of measures, binding or otherwise, to encourage motorists to keep their speed down, when car manufacturers not only produce cars that greatly exceed speed limits but even make this a selling point? What is the point of calling upon motorists to be careful and to reduce the time they spend at the wheel, when, in the quest for profit, the road haulage industry and large retail and industrial companies force lorry drivers to drive until they are extremely tired? What is the point of lamenting the fact that road traffic accounts for 95% of accidents involving all forms of transport – there is hence no possible comparison with trains or aircraft – if every government’s policy is to encourage road transport, openly or implicitly, over all other types of transport, for both the public and freight. Even in Europe’s richest countries, public transport is underdeveloped and many people use their cars not through choice but out of necessity, due to a lack of adequate public transport.
In the race for profit and zero stock, large companies are forced to see road transport as part of their production line and this transforms some motorways into a long, almost endless chain of lorries. Even on the limited question of truck-on-train technology, what happens in actual practice is the opposite of the official line. On a more general note, a sensible approach to transport would require a sensible approach to manufacturing, an approach, in other words, that does not place profit above all else. This, however, is a far cry from the laughable measures proposed by the Commission and by this report."@en1
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