In its ‘Policy orientations on road safety 2011-2020’, the European Commission encouraged Member States to develop national road safety plans.
In order to improve road safety conditions in all Member States of the Union, such plans describe the means to achieve the common objective (road safety), draw up a timetable and publicise details of the national plan. The are no specific guidelines on how to carry out this action; on the contrary, Member States must choose and prioritise those road safety actions that best respond to the main problems on their own roads. Furthermore, this exercise is not compulsory, and there is no formal recommendation from the Commission to elaborate a plan. The Commission is there to support and facilitate this work, for example, by creating opportunities for dialogue and exchanging best practices.
To date, 24 EU Member States have developed a national plan for road safety. Almost all of these target a reduction in road fatalities while about half have a target for reducing serious injuries.
The Commission started to analyse existing national road safety strategies in the EU and has prepared a discussion paper to share good practices across the Member States by taking examples that have been chosen to illustrate a broad mix of actions related to different domains: enforcement, education, infrastructure, vehicles, etc.
While inspiring Member States to improve their road safety management, the paper stresses that road safety planning is only a tool and the key to achieving better road safety records remains the effective implementation of the planned actions.
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Source: Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport | European Commission
