Hungary

Country Summary

From promoting the use of seat belts to building regional road safety partnerships, the GRSP Hungary Association has been moving fast in 2010. By the end of the year, there were a total of 26 corporate and 11 individual members. Fortunately, the road safety situation in Hungary is improving, but the death toll is still far too high. This vibrant multi-sector partnership is responding with a variety of ambitious and creative projects.

Save Our Lives

In April 2010, GRSP joined a consortium of 11 partners for the regional road safety project, ‘Save Our Lives’. A comprehensive road safety strategy for Central Europe, the main goal of the three-year project is to reduce the number of road crashes and fatalities. The project intends to enhance road safety on the regional level by making community road safety strategies and building capacity in the frame of sustainable mobility. The project has helped GRSP Hungary build stronger relations with different road safety stakeholders, including Hungarian SOL project partner, the Institute of Transport Sciences.

©GRSP

Seat belts

In 2010, GRSP Hungary continued to work actively on improving the use of seat belts. After the translation of the manual, “Seat-belts and child restraints: a road safety manual for decision-makers and practitioners” into Hungarian in 2009, GRSP organized workshops to present the document. For implementation of the manual, GRSP Hungary designed “Holds the family together”, road signs to enhance the seat belt wearing rate; 50 of them were placed in strategic points in Pest County with the help of local police as part of a pilot project, and another 50 were placed countrywide by Shell Hungary.In addition to the road signs, information material was handed out to drivers at police checkpoints in Pest County, and awareness was raised through local media and community events. The conclusions, lessons learnt and achievements of the pilot project will be outlined in a manual, which is expected to be published in 2011.

GRSP in Hungary participated in many other awareness-raising activities:

  • 4th Road Safety Day for children – GRSP supported the children’s event hosted by the Hungarian Rail Museum in Budapest, with the aim of making rail and other means of transport safer for children.
  • A GRSP stand at MOTORREVÜ — an event held for motor bikers as one of the main groups of vulnerable road users. In 2010, the event took place at a major shopping center in Budapest, attracting up to 40,000 participants and spectators.
  • Exhibition of a pedestrian crossing project and other activities at the Police Museum, where a section was devoted to GRSP Hungary.
  • Presentation on “Seat-belts and child restraints: a road safety manual for decision-makers and practitioners” at the Kriminalexpo-Communication for the Safety of Hungary Conference.
  • Exhibition at Motofest, an event held on Hungaroring (the Hungarian F1 race track) to promote safe driving and reduce risk-taking behaviour in motorbike users.

Due to the targeted interventions, the road safety situation has improved tremendously in Hungary. From 2001 to 2009, there has been more than a 30-per cent-decrease in road-crash death. Despite the achievements, however, our country still underperforms in comparison with other EU member states. It is not acceptable that in Hungary about every half an hour an accident occurs with personal injury, and every day two or three people leave home and never return because they become a victim of a road crash.

– Dr Sándor Pintér, Minister of the Interior