Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-18-Speech-4-088"
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"en.20010118.4.4-088"2
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". – I would like to commend Ms Hedkvist-Petersen for her very thorough report on a subject that is of great concern to all of us. The statistics are quite staggering: 42,000 deaths on the EU’s roads every year, an estimated 1.7 million people injured to one degree or another.
It is clear that this issue requires the concerted efforts of all concerned: EU, national and local authorities, as well as the many voluntary organisations and initiatives which aim to tackle the problem of traffic accidents.
The number of fatal accidents varies greatly from one Member State to another ranging from 60 to 243 per million with an EU average of 116. In my own country, Ireland, there are 129 persons per million inhabitants killed on the roads each year. I find particularly disturbing the fact that road accidents are the most common cause of death amongst children and people under 45 years of age in the EU.
This is an intolerable situation. The figures show clearly that the number of fatal accidents can be reduced drastically throughout the EU. It is crucial that our commitment to saving lives on the roads, in particular those of our young people, is not just a lip-service. There must be adequate resources injected into proactive policies at Union level so as to help individual Member States improve their traffic safety records.
At present the Commission’s road safety budget is EUR 8 million per year. I believe that the Commission needs to send out a strong signal of its determination to reduce road casualties. I would call on the Commission to increase significantly the road safety budget and indeed to encourage Member States to follow suit.
Money spent on reducing road accidents is money well spent. Inadequate road safety costs society and the Member States a great deal of money. The human tragedy is immeasurable, but attempts have been made to quantify the damage, and these show that the enormous economic cost of traffic accidents in the form of medical and emergency treatment, damage to property and loss of income amounts to about EUR 100 billion per annum.
Things are certainly moving in the right direction. During the 1990s, the number of road deaths in the EU fell by 26%. This trend must now be maintained and strengthened.
Parliament has consistently held that one of the major political goals of transport policy is to give priority to measures to improve safety for all modes of transport, as well as providing the necessary financial resources for this purpose. The number of fatalities and injuries on Europe’s roads is not something which is predetermined. We must make improving road safety a political priority and provide the financial means to match."@en1
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