Skip to main content

EU plans to boost road safety

EU plans to improve road safety will include strengthening road infrastructure management, in a bid to reduce road fatalities and serious injuries. The changes will ensure that current rules used for motorways and other primary roads will be extended beyond the trans-European transport network (TEN-T). This will help improve road infrastructure safety and the directive will also cover roads outside urban areas that are built using EU funding. The proposal will introduce a network-wide road safety assess
March 5, 2019 Read time: 1 min
EU plans to improve road safety will include strengthening road infrastructure management, in a bid to reduce road fatalities and serious injuries. The changes will ensure that current rules used for motorways and other primary roads will be extended beyond the trans-European transport network (TEN-T). This will help improve road infrastructure safety  and the directive will also cover roads outside urban areas that are built using EU funding.


The proposal will introduce a network-wide road safety assessment. This snapshot of the entire road network will be used to evaluate crash risk. Authorities will analyse the results and carry out more targeted road safety inspections or take direct remedial action.

It will become mandatory to take systematic account of pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable road users in road safety management procedures. These road users accounted for almost half of road fatalities in the EU in 2017.

Related Content

  • Cutting speed to cut crashes and boost safety
    February 10, 2021
    Cutting speed can help cut crashes and boost safety.
  • Road safety at the core of future mobility
    May 18, 2020
    The ERF participated in the recent 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety held in Stockholm, Sweden
  • Road safety’s slow gain in Europe
    June 27, 2018
    Europe is seeing an improvement in road safety, but at a slower rate than hoped for. Official data shows that 25,250 people were killed in road crashes in the EU during 2017, a 2% drop from the figure recorded for 2016. Furthermore, road deaths have dropped just 3% in the last four years in the EU, with casualty reduction targets not being met. There are 32 countries listed in the PIN programme intended to cut road deaths and 22 of these nations did record improvements in road safety. Estonia managed to
  • ERF aims to boost the voice of road infrastructure in EU research policy
    July 1, 2013
    As of 1 January 2014, the European Union's (EU's) next Multi-Annual Financial Framework for the period 2014–2020 will come into effect. One of the key components of this European strategy aimed at boosting competitiveness and increasing Europe’s innovation potential is the EU’s Strategic Framework for Research and Development called ‘Horizon 2020’. Recognising that without research and development, Europe cannot maintain the industrial leadership it currently holds in many areas, European leaders look set t