Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-06-18-Speech-3-423"
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"en.20080618.29.3-423"2
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"Commissioner Tajani, I would like to congratulate you and wish you every success with your decision-making. Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what distinguishes a racing driver from an ordinary car, lorry or bus driver, or indeed a cyclist? The racing driver walks the course before driving it, in order to gain an impression of its quality. Obviously, that is not something that we can do with our extensive trans-European networks. Regardless of where we are in the European Union, we must be able to rely on a minimum level of quality in our road infrastructure.
Road infrastructure management is therefore an important topic for Europe. Improving road safety – as this House has repeatedly said – has a horizontal dimension. It must be based on an integrated approach, dovetailing the implementation of existing and new legislation and the dissemination of good practice. Drivers, vehicles and infrastructure all influence road safety. We are not starting from scratch. Some countries already have methodologies and strategies for road infrastructure safety management and they must be able to retain these. In this context, the maintenance and expansion of road infrastructures are future-oriented topics in precisely the same way as research, education and employment.
I would like to focus on one point of detail, however. In my view, it is extremely important to improve parking facilities for heavy goods vehicles on a Europe-wide basis; that is a key element of safety management. Whereas many other workers are able to have breakfast with their families and finish work at 5 p.m., lorry drivers are out on the road day and night for weeks at a time, with poor medical care, patiently accepting being away from home, to say nothing of having to contend with the widely varying personal care facilities across the TENs. Indeed, unlike most other people, lorry drivers have to pay heavy charges for these facilities. They also have to pay through the nose if they cannot find proper parking areas where they can stop and comply with the rest times that are prescribed by European law. That is another reason why we need this directive."@en1
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