Safety is 'low priority' in EU

28 October 2003: Road safety has a 'low priority' among the institutions of the EU, according to Maz Mosely, Euro NCAP Chairman and FIA President.

Speaking at the 1st International Road Safety Exhibition, in Verona, Italy, he said it is 'far from easy is to be satisfied when 40,000 people are dying every year on our roads and 1.7 million are injured'.

He welcomed the recently adopted EU Road Safety Action Plan, which has as its interim targetthe reduction of deaths and injuries by 50% by 2010, and the proposal to launch a Road Safety Charter.

"These are important incremental steps towards a safe road system," he told delegates. "I would also like to congratulate our member club, the Automobile Club of Italy, in organising this event, which brings together key policy makers, ministers and officials from around the EU. They have given us an important and rare opportunity to take stock of the EU's road safety policies."

He said there is 'a major problem of coordination' between Directorate Generals within the European Commission. This results in policy delay, confusion and conflict.

"Vehicle safety standards are the responsibility of one DG, action to promote seat belt use is the role of another." he noted. "One DG publishes a communication on telematics and road safety, another publishes a road safety action plan. During early stages in the preparation of these documents the different DGs were working in entirely different directions, with officials barely talking to one another."

He also said that despite the fact that the EU acknowledged that cars awarded five stars in the Euro NCAP crash test programme have a 36% lower intrinsic fatal accident risk than vehicles which are simply designed to meet the legal standard, the Commission still owed Euro NCAP €300,000 for tests carried out in 2001.

"Faced with insolvency, Euro NCAP secured payment only after its Board threatened to cease all future co-operation with the Commission. Even now, Euro NCAP has not been paid in full.

"If a terrorist organisation announced that it was going to kill 50,000 of our fellow citizens next year; to eliminate by violence 137 people every day, what would the European Council decide to do? Would they add the subject as a minor part of a Commissioner's portfolio, authorise the establishment of a modest unit within a DG and ask it to report back in 2010? I don't think so. The response would be on a par with 9/11, it would be overwhelming. So should it be for 50,000 road deaths."

©2003 irishcar.com