The second day of the informal meeting of Transport Ministers, Tuesday 30 October in Graz (Austria), provided an opportunity for participants to discuss road safety, as they recalled their commitment to reducing road accidents.
Recalling at a press conference that "70 people die on the road every day" in the European Union, Norbert Hofer, the Austrian Minister of Transport, wanted to put the issue of road safety on the agenda of this informal meeting of Transport Ministers. At a press conference, he stressed the emotional, societal and economic costs of road accidents.
Autonomous driving, a "tremendous opportunity", should, in his opinion, make it possible to remedy the road accidentology, in that it eliminates the human error responsible for more than "90% of accidents".
The desire to reduce accidents is in any case shared by all, as welcomed by the Commissioner for Transport Policy, Violeta Bulc. "All Member States remain committed to 'vision 0' by 2050" and to meeting the targets of a 50% reduction in fatal accidents from 2010 to 2020 and a further 50% reduction from 2020 to 2030, she said, referring in particular to the Commission's commitment to completely eliminate accidentology on European roads by the middle of the century.
In her view, action must be taken on infrastructure, vehicles and human behaviour, whether of the driver or emergency services. "Paradigm shift is needed", Bulc added.
The Commissioner then referred to the third ‘mobility’ package, focusing on road safety, and in particular the Commission's proposals on road infrastructure safety management and vehicle safety (see EUROPE 12022). Discussions are progressing on these issues (see EUROPE 12119) and Mr Hofer said he wanted to obtain a political agreement ('general approach') between the States on these two texts at the Transport Council meeting on 3 December.
Ms Bulc also stated that the Commission would adopt, "in the coming months", a delegated act on the deployment of Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS), also with a view to reducing accidentology on European roads. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)