Inaugural European Road Safety Awards presented on World Health Day

On World Health Day on 7 April ACCESS-EUROCITIES & POLIS city networks awarded the first European Road Safety Awards to a cities and regions that have demonstrated best practice in road safety.

A jury comprising representatives from the European Transport Safety Council, Transport for London, and the ACCESS and POLIS Brussels offices selected winners in the following five categories:

Comprehensive Road Safety Strategy - Aberdeen
Since the early 1990s Aberdeen has continually set ambitious targets for the reduction of road accidents. It has consistently exceeded those targets and continues to reduce road accident casualties.

Technological Innovation - Ghent
The jury was impressed with Ghent’s determination to test, use and promote new technologies (Intelligent Speed Adaptation) to reduce speed in the city. 20 private drivers - including opinion formers such as the mayor, councillors, the university rector and the chairman of Volvo - are testing the ISA device.

Achievement - Krakow
Krakow received this award for its integrated policy and the promising figures resulting from this approach. The general aim of the city’s road safety policy is to prevent and eliminate threats and black spots through the collection and analysis of data. They have achieved impressive results despite a sometimes difficult context.

Education Measures - London Borough of Bromley
Bromley’s extensive education programme addresses the most vulnerable road users in society - children and young people. An elaborate and comprehensive set of education measures is in place, including the development of school travel plans and safer routes to school, road safety education in schools, walking buses, school crossing patrols, bicycle training, walk to school weeks, pre-driver courses and a child car seat centre. The Borough also clearly links the improvement of road safety to modal shift in favour of sustainable modes of transport.

Partnerships - Hampshire
Hampshire County Council has a joint speed management strategy with Hampshire Constabulary and also co-operates with the local police force on road casualty reduction to ensure that appropriate lessons are learnt from the most serious incidents on the county’s road network. Hampshire clearly places priority on active community engagement and partnership working.

For more information about the European Road Safety Awards contact ACCESS-EUROCITIES, Héliéna Brégand, communications officer, phone +32 2 5520883, h.bregand@eurocities.be