The EuroRAP International Conference 2007

In the last decade, 2 million Europeans have lost their lives or suffered crippling injury on the roads. Road casualties bleed away 2% of GDP.

Until EuroRAP, there were no internationally recognised standards for governments, consumers or engineers to measure the safety of the roads we use every day.

EuroRAP’s new transparency shows that our roads are managed inadequately. Dysfunctional one and two star main roads, with death rates at least 10 times higher than other roads, are commonplace. Yet eliminating high risk roads often requires little more than the organisation to install the correct road markings and safety fencing.

EuroRAP’s research shows that few countries have a systematic management process in place to generate the safety programmes required on existing roads – this despite economic returns routinely in excess of 100% pa.

This latest conference will be held in Britain whose recent safety performance relative to other countries is a source of concern.

The conference will hear how the top performing countries and manufacturers have set out clear visions for a safe road system. These visions aim to inspire. They do not accept business as usual – particularly from road and vehicle engineers. They allocate responsibilities to drivers, manufacturers and roads authorities to prevent and contain the high energy crashes that kill.

The conference will hear the first star rating results measuring the safety of Britain’s roads following EuroRAP inspections and other results throughout Europe - and how:

• leading countries are seeking to build a safe road system on which no-one dies
• drivers need to adapt their driving when faced with 2-star roads
• 5-star cars have both crash protection and systems to support safe driving
• EuroRAP is tracking the pace at which authorities eliminate dysfunctional roads
• EuroRAP tools are available to generate large scale safety upgrading programmes
• The law is changing to demand greater infrastructure safety.

Newsflash
New Road Safety Minister Jim Fitzpatrick MP to address conference.