Ireland partners with Portugal and Romania to share ideas for improving road safety
Ireland has been twinned with Portugal and Romania as part of a new EU road safety project. The EU Road Safety Exchange Project 2019-2021 aims to reduce the overall number of road deaths and serious injuries on EU roads.
The Road Safety Authority (RSA) is hosting its first meeting with the Portuguese delegation in Dublin this week to share learnings of successful policy development.
In a two-day visit, the RSA, Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, An Garda Síochána, Medical Bureau of Road Safety and the DPP, will outline the Irish experience of tackling drink driving and speeding with delegates from Portugal as they continue to refine policy approaches to improve their road safety performance. The Portuguese delegation is accompanied by Mr. Matthew Baldwin, European coordinator road safety and deputy director general and DG MOVE.
A total of 145 people were killed on Irish roads in 2019, and a further 29 fatalities have occurred to date this year. The latter figure shows no sign of improving however, as 29 people also lost their lives on our roads during the same period last year (March 2, 2019).
The Dublin meeting marks the first in a series of events under the EU Road Safety Exchange to support road safety partnerships between EU member states. The three-year EU Road Safety Exchange project aims to tackle road fatalities by bringing together collective best practice between EU nations. Transport experts from 12 EU member states will come together to share policies and strategies for reducing speed, building safe infrastructure, and improving the safety of cyclists and pedestrians.
The Exchange will focus on the EU member states with the highest potential for achieving improvements in road safety. Ireland is to partner with Portugal on the sharing of best practice related to drink and drug driving, and with Romania in the area of road safety enforcement.
The project is being managed by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), a leading NGO on transport safety that works with road safety experts from across the EU.