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

  • Safety barriers improve highway safety
    July 3, 2012
    Highway safety could yet improve using available technology more widely Safety barriers still offer huge opportunities to improve accident statistics worldwide. There is a wide array of products on the market to suit all types of installation and with a diverse range of solutions for each application. Highway authorities have been installing barriers for many years now and the technology continues to improve, however an analysis of accident statistics shows that barriers offer further potential. Details fr
    Read More
  • Reducing road deaths and injuries
    October 3, 2016
    The International Transport Forum is releasing a new report intended to help cut crashes worldwide. The report has been compiled by international experts and analyses the experience of Safe System countries and offers guidance for countries seeking to reduce road deaths. The report highlights need for a new approach to cutting the casualty toll and is called Zero Road Deaths and Serious Injuries: Leading a Paradigm Shift in Road Safety. It has a number of core recommendations. The conventional approach
    Read More
  • Making roads safer for the young
    February 27, 2018
    Children are at serious risk on Europe’s road network. This is the finding of a new report from the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC). According to the ETSC’s analysis of crash data, more than 8,000 children aged 0-14 years have been killed in road traffic collisions over the last 10 years in the European Union. Half of the children killed were travelling in cars, a third were walking and 13% were cycling, with one in every 13 child deaths in the European Union being the result of a road collision.
    Read More
  • Proven safety barrier installation practices
    June 27, 2013
    Barrier selection criteria should pay close attention to risks for stretches of road as well as regulations. Roadways need to have barriers to provide passive protection for users and to reduce the risk of injury or death in the event of a vehicle leaving the roadway. A wide array of regulations and legislation covers the design and installation of barriers on Europe’s roads. However, there are still a number of loopholes for certain types of roadside protection and further agreement is required to close th
    Read More

Highlighted Content