Both the European Parliament and the European Commission turned their attention to important infrastructure issues at the beginning of the year, focusing on critical infrastructure across the EU and growing imbalances between Member States. However, the draft Directive on the safety of road infrastructure , which is probably the main instrument to ensure the safety of the vital Trans-European Networks, failed to go on the agenda of the EU Transport Council meeting in Brussels on 22-23 March.
Too few Member States apply stringent safety requirements across their road networks today, and ETSC has long called for an EU Directive in this area . Present road design results from many decades of construction and maintenance at a time when safety issues were diluted among other considerations. Many roads do not meet latest safety requirements dictated by dramatically changed traffic conditions. Therefore improved road safety features, a well-defined sign system and properly managed infrastructure are essential to enforce desired traffic behaviour by assisting the driver to cope with the limitations of human capacity.
In March 2007 ETSC, in cooperation with Toyota Motor Europe and 3M, started a Roads to Respect Infrastructure Programme which focuses on young people and the treatment of high risk sites in Spain, Italy and Poland. ETSC staff will give lectures at universities in these three countries and later convene students for a five-day road safety training course in Brussels. After returning to their countries the students should identify a high risk site and develop their own campaign plan to get it treated. The best contributions will be presented to road safety scientists, policy makers and private companies. If successful, the programme will be extended to other EU countries. By improving road infrastructure, in particular by eliminating high risk sites, substantial and sustainable casualty reductions can be achieved in relatively short time and at relatively low cost. Hopefully, with EU legislators and regulators coming to the same conclusion, and new grassroots initiatives like ETSC’s Roads to Respect programme mobilizing transport authorities across the EU, more lives can be saved through routine day-to-day improvements to the vital transport infrastructure we all use.