Road death reduction slows down in Europe

Publication date: 09 April 2008

Preliminary figures released by the FIA point to an unexpected slowdown or even turnaround in the reduction of road deaths. Governments need to step up action if they want to meet safety targets.

The FIA's latest research, covering 2007, represents a stark warning that Europe is ever more unlikely to reach its target of halving fatalities by 2010 if it does not urgently implement additional measures. Whilst over the past five years some countries have booked reductions of more than 25 per cent, the FIA's new survey shows a marked increase in fatalities in various countries over 2006. Only a few countries such as Austria, France and Germany actually managed to book further notable road fatality decreases*.

“These results support claims made by the FIA and its member clubs in September 2007. We then called on the EU to shift up a gear if it still wants to meet the target of a 50% reduction in fatalities by 2010,” said Werner Kraus, Chair of the FIA Eurocouncil. Kraus, though, noted that the preliminary figures only give a “snapshot”. “More in-depth analysis is still required. Looking at the whole year, we get a less worrying picture of road safety in Europe than six months ago. But the situation remains critical,” added Kraus.

Key measures needed
With the new figures confirming the slowdown in the reduction of road fatalities and injuries, the FIA and its member clubs once again called on the European Union (EU) to implement, without further delay, key measures to get the EU back on track. Clubs thus reiterated their call for the mandatory introduction of Electronic Stability Control (ESC) and dedicated daytime running lights (DRL) in all new passenger cars by 2012 at the latest. With regard to the infrastructure the EU should move to swift adoption of a Directive on Road Infrastructure Safety Management. This Directive was called for by the European Parliament back in 2005 and proposed by the European Commission in 2006. Finally with regard to driver behaviour there should be much greater work to encourage the use of seatbelts across Europe as well as the mandatory introduction of seat belt reminders for all seats in all passenger cars. An additional measure is increasing personal awareness for responsible driving, targeting driver behaviour through education and enforcement.

Road safety has always been a priority for the FIA member clubs. Clubs in Europe are involved in various projects to make roads safer. These projects include the European Road Assessment Programme (EuroRAP), a testing programme for the quality and safety of mobility (EuroTest), a European Tunnel Assessment Programme (EuroTAP), a New Programme for the Assessment of Child-restraint Systems (NPACS) and the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP).

* Over the past five years. France has cut road deaths by more than 40 per cent, Luxembourg by around 30%. Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden have booked decreases of around 25%.

For more information contact Olivier Lenz, (o.lenz@fiabrussels.com)

More deaths
According to the FIA's research, the number of fatalities actually rose in 2007 compared to 2006 in Denmark (+34%), Luxembourg (+33%), the Czech Republic (+17%), Finland (+14%), Slovenia (+12%) and Sweden (+6%). On the positive side, the number of fatalities decreased in Austria (-6 %), Italy (-11 %), Norway (-4%), Greece (-3%), France (-2%) and Spain (-9%). These figures, covering a moving time period, are based on information provided by FIA clubs from a variety of sources including police, traffic agency reports, government statistics and the clubs’ own surveys. These figures, however, do not represent official EU statistics. Timescales as well as reporting and calculating methods vary between different European countries. For instance, the Czech Republic counts as fatalities only those people who die on the spot or up to 24 hours after the accident. In Croaita, road fatalities include persons who die in hospital up to 30 days afterwards.