Conference on road safety in Vienna: "Road Safety 2020+"

The Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology (BMVIT), the Austrian Road Safety Board (KFV) and the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) hosted the Road Safety Conference as part of the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union

In recent years, road safety in Europe has not developed as hoped. Austria would therefore like to set a milestone for the next decade in road safety work and bring about substantial progress with an expert meeting on the topic of road safety between 2021 and 2030.

To this end, the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Austrian Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology (BMVIT), the Austrian Road Safety Board (KFV) and the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) hosted a high level road safety conference in the ceremonial hall of BMVIT in Vienna on 13 November 2018.

“We all have a new decade ahead of us, in which we will once again try to achieve ambitious road safety goals”, Federal Minister Norbert Hofer said.

The current Austrian Road Safety Programme provides for more than 250 carefully selected measures in 17 fields of action to address in a targeted and comprehensive manner the factors that endanger road safety.

But Austria is not alone in these efforts. More than half of the EU member states have already started work on the National Road Safety Programme 2020+. In more than 70% of EU countries, the planned time frame is a decade.

The three main road safety problems cited across the EU are inappropriate speed, driver distraction as well as alcohol and drug misuse. Speed monitoring, public awareness campaigns, and infrastructure and training measures were cited as the most effective measures in recent years. In the future, the focus will be placed on vulnerable and young road users, in particular.

Another priority is the Safe System approach, which involves jointly designing a safe system for all road users. The Safe System approach is already applied in the majority of current road safety programmes and will also play a decisive role in planning upcoming road safety programmes.

New forms of mobility for improved road safety

More than 60% of countries already have regulations on automated driving. These new forms of mobility affect road safety, car sharing systems, the economy as well as the reduction of motor vehicles. However, in many cases, the exact impact cannot yet be estimated.

Consensus has been reached on the fact that the opportunities opened up by automated driving must definitely be used to improve road safety. At present, more than 90% of accidents can be attributed to human error. Moreover, driver distraction poses an ever-greater road safety problem throughout Europe.

In his closing words, Federal Transport Minister Norbert Hofer noted:

“Today’s event is intended to help us share especially promising best-practice approaches with each other. This is what prompted us to invite experts to share valuable tools for road safety work in talks and presentations that will help us, in turn, to plan, and then go on to implement, the next road safety programmes in an effective and promising manner.”

More information about this event can be found on the event page.