WRITTEN QUESTION E-1783/99

by Mark Watts (PSE) to the Commission

(11 October 1999)

Subject: Road safety

Road crashes are the major cause of death for EU citizens aged 45 years and under, account for about twice the total EU budget and cost more than cancer, coronary heart disease, pollution or congestion. The most recent communication from the Commission to the Council and Parliament was published in April 1997.

Will the Commission now make road safety a priority for EU transport policy by:

1. setting the fatality reduction target proposed by the European Parliament (no more than 25 000 deaths by the year 2010);

2. ensuring that the lion's share of the transport safety budget is spent on road safety;

3. devoting more staff resources to road safety policy;

4. ensuring that any EU measure or commitment of resources will lead to genuine road safety benefits;

5. doing all it can to expedite a comprehensive proposal for safer car fronts for pedestrians and cyclists, incorporating all the four crash tests proposed by the European Experimental Vehicles Committee, which was the top priority in the Parliament's recent road safety report;

6. providing as much support as possible to the European New War Assessment Programme.

Answer given by Mrs de Palacio on behalf of the Commission

(24 November 1999)

The Commission shares the Honourable Member's concern at the toll of death and injury from road accidents. The communication to which the Honourable Member refers contained an action programme for road safety for the period 1997-2001(1). At the request of the Parliament the Commission is preparing a report on the operation of this programme to date and a list of priority actions for the future. Work on this report is well advanced, and the Commission hopes to submit it to Parliament early next year.

On the specific questions raised:

1. The Commission is of the opinion that setting targets, when it has little or no control over the means of achieving them, is not the best way of promoting road safety at Community level. If individual Member States wish to set targets, the Commission would offer whatever support it could in achieving them.

2. The Commission wishes to promote transport safety across all modes. In allocating its transport safety budget the Commission will be guided by both the need for action and the value added at a European level. Using these criteria, in recent years the proportion of the transport safety budget spent on road safety measures has been around 60 %.

3. The Commission always seeks to maximise the benefits from its limited staff resources.

4. Where a measure or commitment of resource has a bearing on road safety the Commission will, as it has in the past, seek to ensure that maximum benefits accrue from the measure or commitment.

5. The Commission is currently developing a proposal for legislation on pedestrian friendly car fronts and that proposal will be based upon the recently completed work done by the international scientific committee on vehicle safety (EEVC).

6. The Commission will continue to give both its financial and practical support to the Euro new car assessment programme (NCAP). It believes that EuroNCAP has promoted a market for safety culture amongst the general public and within the vehicle manufacturing industry.

(1) COM(97) 131 final.