Draft report on European Road Safety Action Programme

Ari Vatanen, Member of the European Parliament, presented on 16th of March in the meeting of the Committee on Transport and Tourism of the European Parliament a draft report on the European Road Safety Action Programme. This report includes a proposal for a resolution of the European Parliament that is meant to be used by the European Commission for the mid-term review of the Road Safety Action Programme targeting at halving the number of road fatalities in the EU by 2010.

report_draft_vatanen_safety.pdf (155 KB)

The report urges also the Commission to propose in its mid-term review of the Road Safety Action Programme a comprehensive and permanent EU Road Safety Framework in which all relevant areas of road safety are detailed, targets and accompanying measures for the EU and Member States are presented and progress is measured against the targets and widely published on a yearly basis.

The report considers that performance indicators and peer reviews conducted by Member States can be efficient if used to "name, shame and fame" and thus create political pressure to reach targeted safety levels. Furthermore the report calls for a European Road Safety Agency with clear statutory responsibility for all road safety domains (road user, vehicle and infrastructure) could help to improve the coherence and co-ordination of EU road safety efforts. It recommends that the Agency include the planned Observatory and have concrete tasks in terms of the establishment and promotion of best practices as well as the enhancement of cross-border information exchange.

The report welcomes the European Road Safety Charter and expresses the view that the Charter would be enhanced by a proper certification process, strict evaluation and analysis of the commitments and, in particular, adequate promotion through the media so as to spread best practices in each domain.

It also supports the future development of the EuroNCAP by strengthening co-operation with the Commission through additional financial support and more active participation in the work of the programme; calls for EuroNCAP to incorporate other passive safety aspects, such as whiplash protection, motorway speed crash-testing of windscreens and roof sections and the compatibility of vehicles in the event of car-on-car impact; notes, furthermore, that active safety systems are still a largely untried possibility and that the most promising solutions should be incorporated into the EuroNCAP procedure.