Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-28-Speech-3-423"
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"en.20050928.30.3-423"2
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".
Mr President, it is a pity that this debate is taking place so late, because when you drive home on an empty stomach that can be a safety hazard too. Debate on traffic safety is a question of attitude. It is a question and a test of how we value human life. That is what it amounts to: is human life precious to us?
The figures regarding traffic safety are as bleak and grim as the weather outside tonight. There are about 50 000 deaths per year, about 2 million people are injured. It is the main cause of death in the under-50s age group. It costs about 2% of GNP, equivalent to EUR 200 billion. But that is only money. We have to realise that what is at stake is the human suffering.
Why do we do so little? It is because it is not the Concorde which crashes, it is not the pride of the UK and France which crashes. When that happened, all Concordes were grounded immediately. No stone was left unturned in seeking to remedy the problem. But when it comes to traffic safety, it is just one family crying here, another family crying there. Their lives are shattered, amputated. You do not recover from it. You have to live with it. And perhaps only those people who have experienced that know what the grief of a family means. When I was a small boy I was with my entire family in a motor car when my father was killed. I remember him leaning against the steering wheel, that anxiety in my chest. I am sure that experience has left me with a bigger internal handicap than I dare to admit.
There is still so much that we could do and can do. First of all law enforcement. Okay, that is not an EU matter, it is not within our competence, but that is by far the most efficient way to get things done - through law enforcement, just abiding by and obeying the current rules. On the way here tonight I saw the French police carrying out an alcohol check. When more radars appeared on French roads, immediately fatalities came down.
Sometimes I think that, although it is a matter for subsidiarity, EU citizens should be protected from their respective governments. I am sorry to say that, but that is how it is, because we do not seem to realise the magnitude of the problem. There are incredible discrepancies between different States. It is up to eight times safer in the UK or in Sweden than in some of the new Member States - eight times - imagine that incredible diversity! We have to learn from one another. From now on we must carry out a systematic scrutiny of what is going from country to country. We have to render that transparent, so that people know about it, so that they make a noise about it, so that they create political pressure. We must coordinate our actions and we must disseminate our best practices. If we make mistakes, why should those mistakes be made in those countries which are still on the road to development?
We have to name, shame and fame. That leads to action. When people have been woken up they will demand action from the politicians in their various Member States.
At an EU level we can promote new technology, we can promote new cars with fiscal incentives. At the moment a Chinese car is coming onto the European market, with no EU approval. That should be stopped, because it is downright dangerous. We must invest more money in infrastructure. We should have an infrastructure directive on TEN roads. Europeans are mobile thanks to the European road network. It is not justified, or fair on European competitiveness, that we should spend so much money on railways, which serve so little purpose compared to the road network. We have to be just in that allocation.
Yet things are not so bleak. Traffic has grown threefold since 1970 and yet fatalities have been halved. So cultures can be changed. We must believe in the new generation. At the end of the day, whatever we do, responsibility always lies with the individual. At the end of the day we are responsible.
Mr President, I know my time is up. The EU must act decisively. When our time really
up, hopefully it will not happen on a road. There are still many small boys out there waiting for their fathers."@en1
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"Ari Vatanen (PPE-DE ),"1
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