Overview
Every year more than 40,000 people lose their lives on Europe’s roads. In the EU, 1 out of every 5 child deaths due to injury are a result of road crashes. While many western European countries are making continuous progress in reducing the number of lives lost, fatality rates in many new Member States in the Central Europe Programme area remain high and in some they are even increasing.
With the exception of Hungary all other new Member States in Central Europe have been confronted with a rise in the number of fatalities on their roads in 2007 (in the Czech Republic by 15% and in Ukraine even by 38%). Central Europe clearly shows a higher number of road fatalities per million inhabitants than Western Europe. Within Central Europe, the highest value is observed in Poland (143 road fatalities per million inhabitants), followed by Slovenia (129), Hungary (128) and the Czech Republic (126), compared to Italy (96), Austria (88), and Germany (62).
In Central Europe road safety challenge has reached a magnitude that even puts the overall competitiveness, the attractiveness as location for working and investments as well as the quality of life in the most seriously affected parts of the cooperation area at considerable risk. Road crashes have a severe negative impact on the social and economic situation in all countries, costing up to 2 percent or more of the GDP. Even though there are some good practice examples also in the new Member States of the Central Europe area, where road safety has been addressed successfully in the past years, severe joint efforts will be required by all relevant stakeholders on all levels to make a contribution also within Central Europe to reach the overall policy goal set by the European Commission (EC) in 2003 within the 3rd Road Safety Action Programme: to halve the number of lives lost on our roads from 50,000 to 25,000 per year by 2010.
The CENTRAL EUROPE project SOL aims to promote sustainable mobility and increase awareness for safety issues. SOL has the objective to enhance capacities of local and regional stakeholder to prevent road accidents in Central Europe.
After a deep analysis of the situational assessment in the local implementation areas, Project Partners have developed Road Safety Strategies at community level, implementing all pilots' activities and organising meetings among their stakeholders communities. Through these meetings it was possible to implement the support of all communities to reduce the number of road accidents and trauma. The step forward was the development of community level road safety Action Plans aimed at implementing the developed strategies.
Both Strategies and Action Plans have been discussed in specific workshops with politicians, police, Administrations, Technics, Healthy Sector representatives, Hospital representatives, NGOs. Strategies and Action Plans based on outcomes of the assessment consider national legislation and priorities and local capacity and interest. After these activities the pilot implementation has started in every community.
Pilot projects have been carried out through specific actions developed together with local Target Groups and through specific Road Safety campaigns. The objects of the 12 Pilot Actions have been: Two actions on Road Safety and Public Transport and Freight Transport (IT); Mobility Education (AT); Three Action on Cyclists, Children and Alcohol (HUN); Three actions on Children education and Drink and Drive (PL); One Action on Safe journey to school (CZ); One Action on Young Drivers (SK) and one action on the use of seat belts (SI). Among the activities of the pilot actions SOL project is designing a Transnational Campaign for gathering CE stakeholders to establish a strong cooperation for Road Safety.
The transnational Road Safety network implementation was implemented and some SOL partners signed the European Road Safety Charter, a European participatory platform made up of enterprises, associations, research institutions and public authorities with more than 2,000 signatories. The partnership is now working to set up some permanent networks and the experts are drafting the Final Manual for road safety experts and for decision makers that will be presented during the Final Conference in Brussels on 27th May 2013.
Funding
Results
After a deep analysis of the situational assessment in the local implementation areas, Project Partners have developed Road Safety Strategies at community level, implementing all pilots' activities and organising meetings among their stakeholders communities. Through these meetings it was possible to implement the support of all communities to reduce the number of road accidents and trauma. The step forward was the development of community level road safety Action Plans aimed at implementing the developed strategies. Both Strategies and Action Plans have been discussed in specific workshops with politicians, police, Administrations, Technics, Healthy Sector representatives, Hospital representatives, NGOs. Strategies and Action Plans based on outcomes of the assessment consider national legislation and priorities and local capacity and interest.
After these activities the pilot implementation has started in every communities. Pilot projects have been carried out through specific actions developed toghether with local Target Groups and through specific Road Safety campaigns. The objects of the 12 Pilot Actions have been: Two actions on Road Safety and Public Transport and Freight Transport (IT); Mobility Education (AT); Three Action on Cyclists, Children and Alcohol (HUN); Three actions on Children education and Drink and Drive (PL); One Action on Safe journey to school (CZ); One Action on Young Drivers (SK) and one action on the use of seat belts (SI). Among the activities of the pilot actions SOL project is designing a Transnational Campaign for gathering CE stakeholders to establish a strong cooperation for Road Safety. The transnational Road Safety network implementation was implemented and some SOL partners signed the European Road Safety Charter, a European participatory platform made up of enterprises, associations, research institutions and public authorities with more than 2.000 signatories.