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

  • All change: get ready to rethink everything
    November 10, 2022
    How can we make our infrastructure ready for new sustainability challenges? What kind of investments are needed? And who will finance them? Tolling association Asecap has some thoughts. Geoff Hadwick reports from Lisbon
    Read More
  • Tackling the UK's traffic congestion
    February 28, 2012
    The biggest problem on UK roads is congestion, and there is no shortage of ideas as to how it should be tackled. Patrick Smith reports. Congestion (and how to relieve it), along with safety, are among the top priorities facing those responsible for looking after the UK's roads. Road pricing, car-share lanes, greener vehicle initiatives and alternative methods of transport such as buses, trams and rail are all part of the approach, but prior to the current economic climate the nation's love affair with the c
    Read More
  • 8th UN Global Road Safety Week – May 12-18
    May 12, 2025
    iRAP offers a suite of free, evidence-based tools and resources to support the creation of safer environments for vulnerable road users, in use by its partners in more than 130 countries.
    Read More
  • Road safety contract awarded in UK
    November 7, 2019
    An important road safety contract has been awarded in the UK. The Road Safety Foundation won the work to review how investments are prioritised to improve safety outcomes by Highways England (HE). This deal was awarded by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR). Under the terms of the contract the Foundation is to review how HE ranks the location and type of scheme to deliver. This will focus on how these decisions are influenced by HE’s key performance indicators. It will also analyse how HE takes account of
    Read More

Highlighted Content