Brussels, 13/10/2010 (Agence Europe) - The implementation of the existing legislation and training will be priority Community areas of action for road safety, Commissioner for Transport Siim Kallas announced on Wednesday 13 October. At the conference on road safety, he confirmed that the Commission would be looking into the possibility of bringing in a new detailed objective for the number of people injured in road traffic accidents.
There is no problem with defining a death, whereas what is understood by injury “really needs to be defined”, the transport commissioner declared. We need to clarify the time of the injury (at the time of the accident, or as the consequence of an accident) and develop data collection systems in hospitals, “whose statistics vary considerably from one member state to the next”, Kallas told EUROPE. He went on to state that in theory, these problems of definition could be resolved, because “everybody agrees on the need for a target and to reduce the number of injuries”. Kallas said that reaching a political agreement on the proposed directive on the cross-border pursuits of road traffic infringements would be a major breakthrough.
Among the other actions envisaged by the Commission are reinforcing the road safety of vulnerable users, and better care for those injured. These actions will be part of the action plan to be adopted by the Commission in the very near future, which will also include initiatives to boost the safety of vehicles (harmonisation of technical checks) and of infrastructure (extension of current safety standards to secondary roads). In 2009, more than 35,000 people died on the roads of the EU. (A.By./transl.fl)