EU road safety council welcomes safety vision

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has welcomed a political agreement on road safety and the Cross Border Enforcement Directive, which was adopted by EU transport ministers at a recent Transport Council meeting.

The main objective of the new directive is to introduce a system of exchanging information to enable road safety related traffic offences, committed by non-resident drivers, to be followed up.

The directive will ensure that the principle of fair and equal treatment will be applied to non-residents, some of whom are acting with impunity and escaping punishment while travelling abroad.

In their conclusions EU ministers also endorsed the new target to reduce road traffic deaths by 50% by 2020.

Antonio Avenoso, ETSC executive director, said: "With the swift adoption of this legislation and other road safety actions the EU Presidency and transport ministers honour the renewed target of halving road deaths by 2020.”

For more information contact Ilyas Daoud, ETSC communications officer, or Ellen Townsend, director of policy, on +32 (0)2 230 41 06.