On 13 October 2010, the third European Road Safety Day took place at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium. FEHRL president, Mr. Joris Al, was part of the panel during the third and final session on safety of road infrastructure. Mr. Al’s presentation, “Contribution to Road Safety by Infrastructure” highlighted the need for knowledge transfer and the role FEHRL can play in this transfer. He further presented slides on the Pilot4Safety and Forever Open Road projects. More...

The European Road Safety Day raised the profile of the strategic guidelines on European road safety policy for the period 2011 20, as adopted by the Commission on 20 July. In its Communication "Europe 2020 - A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth", the Commission has underlined the importance for Europe of social cohesion, a greener economy, education and innovation.

A large part of the discussions were focused on safety measures for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists alike. Road safety is a major societal issue. In 2009, more than 35,000 people died on the roads of the European Union, i.e. the equivalent of a medium town, and no fewer than 1,500,000 persons were injured. The cost for society is huge, representing approximately 130 Billion EUR in 2009. The majority of these incidents occurs on the so-called secondary roads. One of the aims of PILOT4SAEFTY is to achieve a common certification method for road safety experts, allowing a relevant number of European Regions to apply the same approach to evaluating secondary roads, with a consequent reduction in the number of road fatalities on these secondary roads.

Forever Open Road is a concept for the next generation of road engineering. It couples what is already known, with what still needs to be developed, in order to provide the roads that are demanded by society in the future.  As part of the overall transport system, the European road system will need to adopt elements of automation, adaptability and (climate change) resilience to give cost-effective reliability. This addresses society’s needs for a system that has lower (decarbonised) energy usage, is safer and with substantially less impact, and intrusion on the environment. Forever Open Road (FOR) is FEHRL’s flagship programme for its research and implementation activities. 

Other presentations at the event held to celebrate the day were given by Parliamentary Groups, the Vice President of the European Commission responsible for mobility, Mr. Siim Kallas, and Mr. Matthias Ruete, Director General, Directorate General for Mobility and Transport, as well as many other plenaries and debates.

FEHRL president, Mr. Joris Al presenting, “Contribution to Road Safety by Infrastructure”.	View of the large participation and interest that took place on the 13 October 2010.
Part of Mr. Al's presentation on the PILOT4SAFETY project.	A slide from Mr. Al's presentation on the Forever Open Road programme.