EU targets of halving road deaths and serious injuries by 2030 are ‘unlikely to be reached without additional efforts’, the European Court of Auditors has warned in a new report.
The EU’s external auditors spent almost a year analysing the bloc’s current road safety efforts and visited four EU member states to carry out checks. While commending the EU’s overall strategic approach, they warn that implementation is lacking or non-existent in several key areas.
In terms of the overarching goals, the auditors suggest that the strategy for reducing serious road injuries is being hampered by a lack of harmonisation on how member states classify data on serious injuries. This leaves the Commission “unable to obtain an accurate overview of serious injuries at EU level and design well-targeted actions to reduce their number,” the report said.
Commenting on the report’s findings, Antonio Avenoso, executive director of the European Transport Safety Council said:
“This report shows the scale of the challenge ahead if the EU is serious about halving the 20,000 tragic deaths on our roads every year. The EU’s current approach is just not going to do the job as long as legislation is not ambitious enough, and proper implementation is lacking in many areas. In an election year, we hope this report will be a wakeup call for the EU that efforts will need to increase in the second half of the decade.”
