EuroRAP urges Member States to 'get organised' to cut road accidents

Creation date: 07 December 2006

A new report from the European Road Assessment Programme (EuroRAP), ‘Getting Organised to Make Roads Safe’, urges member states to “get organised” to stem the estimated EUR160 billion that annually bleeds away in road accidents -- two per cent of Europe's entire GDP.

Road casualties are a blight on European public health, with half million lives lost on the roads in the last 10 years. The report reveals high-risk routes across Europe where these deaths are concentrated. According to EuroRAP Chairman, John Dawson, "European citizens are being routinely killed and maimed on thousands of stretches of road, for want of simple, affordable road safety features such as clear road markings or safety fencing."

Getting Organised to Make Roads Safe marks a move by EuroRAP from just measuring the safety of European roads to identifying the actions that authorities must take to manage roads to higher safety standards.

John Dawson adds “The EU target of a 50 per cent cut in roads deaths by 2010 will remain an aspiration unless authorities get organised to deliver systematic safety engineering programmes on the necessary scale.”

In welcoming EuroRAP's report, EC Vice President in charge of Transport, Jacques Barrot, says, "Many lives could be saved and many accidents avoided if the existing road infrastructure was managed according to the best available know-how on safety engineering. The Commission has therefore adopted important new proposals for a draft Directive to improve the safety of major roads through infrastructure measures and better engineering."