Brussels, 21/01/2013 (Agence Europe) - Not having always excelled for its road safety, Ireland has improved in recent years to now stand among the best. The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) therefore encourages Ireland, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU, to tackle road safety seriously over the next six months. Serious injuries should appear high on the list of priorities.
Ireland can boast “only” 47 deaths per million inhabitants, while the EU average is 60. This leads Antonio Avenoso, the executive director of ETSC, to say that “the Irish progress during the past years is good proof they understand that complacency is not an option in road safety policy-making”. He hopes that the Irish Presidency “will broker agreements on a number of road safety dossiers”. He is pleased to note that serious injuries is an area of priority, and hopes that the Commission will publish a strategy on this subject, as well as on emergency services. The ETSC believes that European objectives should be established on reducing serious injuries in road accidents, and that the objectives should be identical to those for reducing the number of road deaths. (MD/transl.fl)