Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-12-13-Speech-3-446"
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"en.20061213.39.3-446"2
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".
Mr President, early this year there was a terrible car crash in my parish. Four young eastern European citizens died. They had tried to negotiate one of those dreadful Irish country roads in the dark and they were not used to the different driving conditions of Ireland. Unfortunately, this is not a lone incident. Similarly, an Irish neighbour died while working in Spain.
Europeans are on the move. I go to your country, you come to mine. It is a wonderful thing, yet when it comes to driving in safety it is a fact that some are used to driving on the right and others on the left, that drivers are used to varying acceptable levels of speed, different weather conditions and vastly differing roads and, critically, that drivers are trained, tested and licensed to different levels of competence. A learner’s permit in one country may be equivalent to a full licence in another.
Because we are free to move around Europe, we are driving on each other’s roads. The problem is that when such differences lead to death, these discrepancies can no longer be tolerated.
I agree with several things in the report. The principle of progressive access regarding two-wheeled vehicles would surely improve safety. It is also clearly not practical to have 110 different-looking driving licences, which can be displayed but not understood, so the idea of having a single format and code for categories is reasonable.
However, the traffic laws, roads, weather, etc. are so different that a national test and licence will remain essential for a driver. However, a European driver’s licence should be available, like the old international licence, for those who drive in other countries of the Union for more than just a brief holiday.
Finally, although it is not in the report, if we are ultimately to have a European driver’s licence, we should look at a different model from the one-test-for-a-lifetime model that we have in Europe. With such a model, the quality of the test can be very high, which makes it very difficult and very expensive for young people to get, and yet no one looks at the skills of a driver 20 years on. I would recommend the American model of repeat tests: a written test is taken every four years and a road test every eight years and skills must be kept up. The level of safety is high in the test, probably the level of technical knowledge, etc. would not be as great, but people continue to drive..."@en1
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