On 22 January, FIA Region I joined key road safety players in Europe to start a reflection on how to improve road safety in the next decade. The European Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc organised the event, where stakeholders such as ETSC, ANWB, EuroNCAP, EuroRAP, vehicle manufacturers, SWOV among others, reflected on essential themes to improve road safety. The FIA Region I community was well represented.

Commissioner Bulc paid close attention throughout the day to brainstorming sessions around the issues of: safe road use, safe speeds in different environments, safe roads, safe vehicles and effective post-crash care.

This session is the starting point of Commissioner Bulc’s reflection over what needs to be done for road safety between 2020 and 2030. Concluding the day, the group identified these key areas for improvement in the future:

• Improve coordination and leadership from the Commission side (better coordination between Directorate General units, make a clear priority of Road safety)
• Speed management (with a number of stakeholders in favour of mandatory Intelligent Speed assist and 30km/h by default in the city centres)
• Tackle distraction (improved research on sources of distraction, training of users, awareness campaigns)
• Training and education (lifelong learning and better training on new technologies)
• Trial and deployment of future vehicle technologies

The new Strategic EU road safety framework for 2020-2030 is planned to be published by the Commission on May 2nd.