Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-01-17-Speech-3-216"
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"en.20070117.12.3-216"2
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".
Mr President, I would say to the Commissioner that many of us have personal experience of tragedy on the roads. Road safety is a constant concern to all of us and to the people we represent.
I am sure we will vote for greater safety measures and that is a good thing. However, what worries me is that when our safety provisions become law, we will have a false sense of security that our roads are safer. That is not always the case. In the interests of safety, we have legislated that truck drivers must take short breaks every four hours and a long break every nine hours. However, in Ireland there are very few places for trucks to park so that their drivers can rest. Instead, drivers are forced to pull over on the hard shoulder, which is a very dangerous practice for the driver and for everyone using the road.
The problem is that in the cause of safety, we have placed an obligation on truck drivers which in Ireland they cannot comply with safely. This has happened because we did not place a corresponding obligation on governments to supply roadside rest areas, even on EU-funded roads. A new motorway that opened in my own constituency three months ago does not have a single rest area. Today we are considering provisions to make roundabouts, secondary roads, and roadwork zones safer. All this is a good thing, but let us learn from the experience of the Irish truck drivers and require the national governments to make the necessary adjustments to roads in order to implement these safety measures. Otherwise, despite all our efforts, we will continue to be plagued by carnage on our roads."@en1
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