Europe News

By Robert Štaba

In the near future, Slovenia will have to deal with the challenge of creating a coordinated and stable road safety system at the national, regional and local levels. Effective collaboration among road safety stakeholders is critical in order to meet this challenge.

The past few years, the Global Road Safety Partnership has worked closely with the European Transport Safety Counctil (ETSC) to run the annual PRAISE seminar. The ETSC project, Preventing Road Accidents and Injuries for the Safety of Employees (PRAISE), aims to increase road safety in the work context. ETSC’s project aims to “praise” best practices in order to help employers secure high road safety standards for their employees. This year, in cooperation with the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA), the ETSC invites you to its annual PRAISE Seminar in Brussels.  

By Kathleen Elsig

Road crash death and injury effect people around the world each day. In communities both large and small, from Europe and Africa to Asia and the Americas, initiatives are being implemented which aim to prevent road crashes and their serious consequences. Oftentimes, these initiatives are not only low-cost, but they are also fueled by dedicated individuals and professionals. Recently, the Save Our Lives project with guidance from the Global Road Safety Partnership, has made efforts to strengthen the capacity of communities in implementing road safety interventions, through

The Bulletin of the World Health Organization recently featured a comprehensive seat-belt campaign developed by the Sakhalin Road Safety Partnership (SRSP) that has dramatically increased seat-belt use and yielded evidence of reduced traffic-related injury.

Entitled "Buckling up is 'cool' on Russian Island," the article describes how a fatal crash in 2004 led to creation of  SRSP, which later spearheaded a multi-faceted education and enforcement campaign that has increased seat-belt use on the island from 3 percent in 2005 to 80 percent in 2008.

The programme is being undertaken by SRSP in

Typically, there is a gap of time between the moment a road-crash happens and when paramedics arrive. Those few minutes can be critical, even life saving, but how many people know what should be done? 

The Romania Red Cross, a partner of the Global Road Safety Partnership-Romania, is working to address this issue by offering First Aid training to local communities. The aim is to compliment the efforts of the paramedics and other local organisations that offer support after an accident and organize blood donations.

"The trainings are run by the Romania Red Cross, and available for anyone in

Paying tribute to those killed in road crashes and taking a united stand to reduce road deaths were among the key themes of an international conference organized by the Polish Government just after the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims on 22 November.

In 2009 alone, 4,572 people were killed in road crashes in Poland, putting the country on the top of the list for road-crash-related deaths in Europe.

Entitled "Road Accident Victims - Our Common Responsibility," the conference was held at the Polish Parliament building in Warsaw.

Young people interested in road safety are at the heart of an 18-month project that aims to jump-start transport research into speed management.

The STARS project, as it's called, encourages students around Europe to run a local speed-management action to reduce speeding through infrastructure projects or communication projects (awareness campaigns, etc.). STARS is developed by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) and, at this phase, is being implemented in Romania, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece and Spain.

In Romania, the project is being implemented  in partnership with

In April this year, 40-year-old Balázs Tokár was elected president of GRSP/Hungary. A representative for Shell on the GRSP Hungary board since 2007, he has been involved in a number of joint projects within GRSP, including "Traffic playground" with a mini Shell station that is still operational in Budapest and used by local school classes. "Interestingly," he says, "when we were opening the playground back in 2008 - a troublesome political time for Hungary - representatives of all opposition parties from the local administration were present at the ceremony.