Athens, 08/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - Part of the informal Transport Council focused on road safety and ways to reduce human error. In Athens on Thursday 8 May, the Greek Presidency called on European transport ministers to debate the best way to improve driver safety through smart infrastructure (interaction between cars and infrastructure and between drivers and vehicles).
Smart roads. European Commissioner for Transport Siim Kallas urged transport ministers to invest in smart roads and emphasised that “public money should never be spent on unsafe roads”. Speaking on Twitter, he said that he was delighted with the support from ministers for smart transport systems to improve road safety and underlined the need to agree on which basis should be used to implement these systems and provide a boost for innovation.
Greek President Karolos Papoulias took part in the ministerial discussions, underlining his country's commitment to road safety. The informal Council concluded with the presentation of the European Road Safety Charter prize to the Czech Republic's Transport Research Centre.
Sixth European Day. The European Commission is organising a European road safety day in Athens on Friday 9 May. It will invite industry, civil society, researchers and decision-makers to examine ways to make roads safer through technology. This particularly concerns the inter-urban network because currently only 7% of fatal accidents occur on the motorways. (MD)