Part 2 - Safer roads save lives

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30% of accidents on the entire EU road network are caused by inadequate infrastructure

• Despite the relentless drive towards harmonisation of speed limits, blood alcohol levels and enforcement policies, the fact remains that some EU countries – and some roads – are up to six times safer to drive in than others. Even in Member States where identical speed limits and blood alcohol levels are applied, the road death ratio stands at 1:3.
• 27% of accidents in the EU are the result of an impact against unfenced roadside objects (source: RISER project). In Belgium, single-vehicle accidents represented 31% of 11,317 fatalities and serious injuries recorded in 2002 (source: FEBIAC). For motorcyclists, 15% of fatal accidents are attributable to crash barriers alone (source: FEMA). Configuration of the infrastructure was a factor in 46% of accidents in France (source: Réagir Campaign - 20,000 accidents analysed between 1983 and 1996).

The content of the Directive reflects the state of the art

The content of the Directive is based on extensive consultations, which have taken place since 2003 (publication of a first European report on good practices in road infrastructure safety) and is aligned with the findings of European and international research programmes. The impact assessment which accompanies the Directive is far more thorough than in other areas of transport legislation (e.g. revised Eurovignette Directive).

The Directive does not go beyond subsidiarity principles

• Article 155 of the Treaty allows the Community to implement any measures that may prove necessary to ensure the interoperability of the networks, in particular in the field of technical standardisation.
• The proposal does not impose harmonised technical requirements, but provides a broad canvas leaving Member States with a wide degree of autonomy in the implementation of these measures.
• The SEA Directive (2001/42/EC) already constitutes a legal precedent by requiring Member States to produce environmental impact assessments before undertaking major infrastructure works (Is Road Safety less important than the environment?).
• There is strong anecdotal evidence that the introduction of the far more stringent EU Tunnel Safety Directive (2004/54/EC) has already contributed to avoiding potentially very serious accidents in several locations.
• Non-binding recommendations would not be sufficient. Exchanges of best practices have been taking place for years through research projects, working groups, conferences and workshops without achieving the desired level of convergence in road infrastructure safety management. Without a binding methodology and legal commitment throughout the European Union, Member States alone are not in a position to safeguard this common high level of safety, as the very disparate safety records of the single Member States show.

The Directive introduces cost-effective measures

Although, it is not always easy to quantify precisely the economic benefits of Road Safety Audits, there is strong empirical evidence that preventive audits are highly cost-effective.

There are two costs that can be attributed to a audits:

• Firstly there is the cost of undertaking the audit itself, which is almost systematically less than 1 % of the road design costs.
• The second cost relates to implementation of the recommendations contained within the audit report. In many cases, these costs are not significantly high and items identified during the design stages may have no cost implications at all (although they may require some redesign time).

In terms of accident avoidance benefits:

• Experience from auditing specialists suggests that a third of hazards identified during an audit will translate into an accident within 5 years unless a remedial measure is applied.
• In the United Kingdom, the Surrey County Council found average savings of 1 casualty per year on audited schemes versus non-audited roads.
• In Denmark, the Road Directorate initiated a pilot study in 1994 relating to the performance of road safety audits when traffic safety measures were carried out. A panel of experts evaluated 13 projects in detail and determined a "first-year yield" of 146%.

The measures prescribed by the Directive are already widely in application

In 2006, the Austrian Presidency polled the Member States on the level of application of infrastructure safety measures:

• Impact assessments applied or under preparation: 43 %
• Safety audits applied or under preparation: 92 % (on a voluntary basis in 57% of cases)
• Safety inspections applied or under preparation: 80% (no standards in 61% of cases)
• Black spot management programmes: 81% (on a voluntary basis in 59% of cases)

The proposed Directive does not introduce any fundamentally new measures but systematises a process, above all in the 12 Member States that have joined since 2004, and where the greatest gains can be achieved.

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