Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-05-Speech-3-224"
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"en.20060405.20.3-224"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to express my gratitude to you for having the topic of road safety on the order of business for today. As you know, making people in every European state even more aware of this issue than they already are is a particular concern of the Austrian Presidency, the intention being that this should lay another vital foundation stone for a common European road safety policy.
We also agreed that a joint European awareness campaign on the subject could bring synergy effects and greater effectiveness. On the basis of a poll, we found that the subjects of drunken driving and fatigue at the wheel should be tackled as a matter of priority. I am pleased to say that the Commission promised to provide assistance, chiefly of an organisational nature and of course within the rules that apply, and suggested that the High Level Group on Road Safety could be asked to develop a proposal to that effect.
The Commission’s intention of also introducing a ‘European Road Safety Day’ is also fully in line with our common objectives for enhancing road safety. I am sure that an initiative of that kind will also help to create greater public awareness throughout Europe. My special thanks are due here to Vice-President and Commissioner Jacques Barrot for his particular commitment.
Significant efforts have been made since 2001 to make Europe’s roads safer. A number of legislative measures have been taken in both the technical and regulatory fields, for example provisions governing seat belts, the digital tachograph, driving and rest periods, the driving licence or rules for professional lorry drivers. Initiatives such as CARS 21 or the European Road Safety Charter, which create awareness in European local authorities, regions, undertakings, associations etc., should also be mentioned here. Vice-President Barrot’s activities and initiatives, which include proposals already announced for daytime running lights, blind-spot mirrors and in the field of infrastructure, will help to make our roads safer at European level.
May I say in conclusion that if the problems in some Member States with a high level of transit traffic are even greater than the European average, then we should start where the figures are not falling very much or where fatalities are in some cases still rising, for every death on Europe’s roads is one such death too many.
I want to thank Parliament for the opportunity of speaking on this important topic of road safety today and I would like to say that we must not flag in our efforts to make Europe’s roads as safe as possible and thereby prevent much misery and grief.
It was this that led the Presidency to call the informal meeting in Bregenz in Austria on 2 and 3 March, the object being to devote two whole days, at European level, to road safety to the exclusion of all else. In the course of this meeting, and during numerous bilateral conversations, we succeeded in doing justice to the Austrian Presidency's slogan: ‘Crossing Borders in Road Safety – Creating a Trans-European Road Safety Culture’.
I am, then, very grateful to the Commission for its presentation of the mid-term review of the European Road Safety Action Programme, which was discussed during the informal meeting of transport ministers on 2 and 3 March, which I have already mentioned, and most recently at the Council of Transport Ministers on 27 March in Brussels. It is at this point that I would like to make an advance announcement to the effect that the Austrian Presidency also intends that the formal Council of Ministers in Luxembourg on 9 June should adopt final conclusions on road safety.
The European Road Safety Action Programme, which dates back to 2003 and aims to reduce by half the number of deaths in road traffic in the European Union by 2010, lays down EU-wide road safety targets for the period from 2003 to 2010, and includes 60 measures to be implemented across the EU, most of which are not legislative in character. This constitutes a consistent reiteration of the priority of road safety, which had already been laid down in the 2001 White Paper on Transport.
Underpinning all these efforts towards road safety is the long-term determination that in future no more citizens of the EU should be killed or seriously injured in road accidents. A great deal of joint effort is still required if we are to progress further towards this goal. It is abundantly clear from the mid-term review of the EU Road Safety Action Programme, which Vice-President Barrot presented to the meeting I have already mentioned, that Europe may well be on the right road, but is still proceeding at too low a speed.
Let me mention just two or three striking figures, which Mr Barrot has already put before us. The goal of having some 25 000 road traffic fatalities in 2010, lamentable though they would still be, might well be achieved if we were already making better progress. If we were to extrapolate from what we have achieved so far, we would end up with a figure of 32 500. We must step up all our efforts in order to achieve as far as possible the ambitious target we have set ourselves.
A successful transport policy rests on three essential pillars – people, vehicles and infrastructure, and, in the course of the meeting to which I have referred, we were able to discuss all three of them in detail. What does give cause for concern – and this is something I particularly want to stress today – is the trend as regards the numbers of motorcycle and moped users killed. They constitute the only category of road users among whom the number of deaths is increasing rather than decreasing. If this trend is not stopped, there will, in 2010, be only half as many people killed on Europe’s roads, but one out of every three of them will be a motorcyclist, as against the present one in six.
Passing on to infrastructure, Europe must be aware of its responsibility for making suitable instruments available to infrastructure operators, for only if it does so will we succeed in minimising the risk to those who travel on our European road networks. Where vehicles are concerned, it should be emphasised that modern e-safety technology can make a quite essential contribution to improving road safety. E-safety technology is intended to ensure an intelligent link between man and machine and to enable drivers to free themselves from routine actions.
One of the things on which the informal Council in Bregenz (Austria) focussed was the subject of public awareness. In Bregenz we had a very brief and concentrated opportunity to study and compare our European colleagues’ activities in raising public awareness. The evaluation of the various campaign activities showed that targeted awareness campaigns can in fact achieve a great deal. We in Austria, too, have done a lot in this regard in the last few years, stirring people up, thinking or making people think and ultimately, and most importantly, getting people to change their behaviour in a way that makes for greater road safety and fewer road deaths, fewer people injured and seriously injured in road accidents."@en1
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