EU initiative to monitor states’ performance on road safety

THE Government’s road safety record is to come under fresh scrutiny as part of a new EU-wide initiative to tackle the number of deaths on European roads.

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) yesterday launched its new Road Safety Performance Index, which will measure the effectiveness of all 25 EU countries in enforcing road traffic legislation.

The ETSC initiative is designed to keep up pressure on EU member states to fulfil their pledge to cut annual road deaths by 50% by the year 2010.

“The aim is to assess and communicate the failures and successes of national road safety policies in Europe,” said an ETSC spokesperson.

“Tracking member states’ efforts will help to identify best practice in the key road safety policy areas and bring about the kind of political leadership that is needed to create what citizens deserve — a road transport system that offers a maximum of safety.”

The development of the ETSC index, which will compare and rate the performances of individual countries, has been welcomed by the European Commission. It also represents a further step on the first-ever report published recently by the ETSC which assessed the road safety record of different EU countries.

Last month, the non-profit road safety organisation strongly criticised the Irish government’s record on enforcing drink driving legislation.

In a major review of EU road safety performance, Ireland was ranked 13th overall out of the 25 member states, with the poor score largely attributed to the low level of drink driving checks.

The ETSC claimed Ireland needed to further increase enforcement measurements to reduce the incidence of drink driving in order to achieve best practice by EU standards.

However, the report also recognised that Ireland had improved in other important areas of road safety in recent years, such as efforts to reduce the incidence of speeding and non-seat belt wearing.

A new Road Traffic Bill published by Transport Minister Martin Cullen last week includes a number of recommendations contained in the ETSC report which are designed to improve enforcement levels.

They include the introduction of random breath testing and the use of more speed cameras.