The Eurobarometer has published the results of its survey concerning road safety. This survey showed that driving under the influence of alcohol is considered by EU citizens as their main concern in relation to road safety, followed by exceeding speed limits. Around  half of surveyed citizens considered that rod infrastructure should be improved.

The Eurobarometer survey on road safety was conducted among more than 25.000 people aged 15 or over from all 27 Member States. Citizend were asked about their perception on the seriousness of road safety, as well as the measures that national governments should focus on to improve road safety.

Perceptions about the seriousness of road safety problems

• People driving under the influence of alcohol was considered to be a major safety problem by 94% of EU citizens, followed by drivers exceeding speed limits (78%) and drivers/passengers not wearing seatbelts (74%).
• In all Member States, except one, more than 8 in 10 interviewees felt that people driving under the influence of alcohol constituted a major road safety problem in their country.
• The proportion of respondents who said that drivers exceeding speed limits constituted a major safety problem in their country ranged from 52% in Sweden to 94% in Cyprus. Although in some countries respondents were less likely to identify drivers who exceeded speed limits as a major safety problem, the proportion of respondents who said that this was not a problem in their country was 5% or less in all EU Member States.
• Cypriot, Italian, French, Spanish and Greek respondents were more likely than others to regard drivers and passengers not wearing seatbelts as a major safety problem in their country (84%-89%); in Ireland and Sweden, less than half of respondents felt that way (both 47%).
• In about half of the Member States, at least three-quarters of respondents regarded people driving while talking on a hand-held mobile phone as a major safety problem in their country.
• The survey found a relationship between the perceived seriousness of a road safety problem and “concerned” respondents’ calls for their national government to do more to combat the issue.

Measures that national governments should focus on to improve road safety

• A slim majority of EU citizens (52%) said that road infrastructure safety should be improved as either a first or second priority. About 3 in 10 respondents (31%) answered that this should be the first measure that their government should focus on in order to improve road safety.
• Improving the enforcement of traffic laws was the second most frequently selected measure that governments should concentrate on in order to enhance road safety.
• Three in 10 respondents were of the opinion that their national government should initiate more road safety awareness campaigns as a priority action in order to improve road safety. About a quarter of EU citizens (26%) held the view that their government ought to assign priority, for all drivers, to the introduction of periodic driver re-training schemes in order to improve road safety.
• As for the EU results overall, in a majority of Member States (18 out of 27), improving road infrastructure safety in their country was selected as either a first or second priority for government action by the largest proportion of respondents.

The European Commission, in its White Paper of September, 12th 2001 “European transport policy for 2010: time to decide”, expressed the need to carry out safety impact assessments and road safety audits, in order to identify and manage high accident concentration sections within the Community. These objectives were later materialised by Directive 2008/96/CE, on road infrastructure safety management which aimed at establishing the procedures to ensure a consistently high level of road safety throughout the trans-European road network.