7 Road safety
| (27904)
13874/06
COM(06) 569
+ ADDs 1 & 2
| Draft Directive on road infrastructure safety management
|
| Legal base | Article 71 EC; co-decision; QMV
|
| Document originated | 5 October 2006
|
| Deposited in Parliament | 16 October 2006
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| Department | Transport |
| Basis of consideration | EM of 31 October 2006
|
| Previous Committee Report | None
|
| To be discussed in Council | Possibly December 2006
|
| Committee's assessment | Politically important
|
| Committee's decision | Not cleared, further information requested
|
Background
7.1 In the 2001 White Paper on Transport Policy and its 2003 Communication
on a road safety action programme[19]
the Commission foreshadowed an initiative on road infrastructure
safety.
The document
7.2 The Commission intends this draft Directive to complement
legislation on driver and vehicle safety by introducing a comprehensive
system of road infrastructure safety management. It asserts that
lives could be saved and accidents avoided if road infrastructure
and design was managed according to the latest best practice of
safety engineering. To achieve this the proposed Directive would
introduce procedures for road safety impact assessments, road
safety audits, management of high-risk road sections and network
safety management and safety inspections. These would apply to
roads in the trans-European road network (TERN), itself part of
the transport Trans-European Network, but not to tunnels, which
are already covered by an earlier Directive, 2004/54/EC.
7.3 The draft Directive would provide for:
- procedures for assessing the
likely safety effects of a road project, and alternative designs,
before a decision is taken to construct it;
- procedures to be implemented to expose individual
safety problems that have not been foreseen by road designers
to ensure that problems are rectified;
- require road authorities to identify and manage
both high risk road sections and sections with the greatest accident
cost reduction potential and to warn motorists of high risk sections;
- procedures for recurrent, routine road inspections
and inspection of roadworks;
- requirements for data collection for individual
accidents; and
- implementation including a requirement for Member
States to report their implementation plans, a duty on road authorities
to adopt training curricula for road safety auditors and safety
inspectors and procedures for reporting on the measures five years
after implementation and every four years thereafter.
The Government's view
7.4 The Minister of State, Department for Transport
(Dr Stephen Ladyman) first tells us that nearly all the UK roads
which would be affected by this proposal are under the control
of government agencies in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland (although the position in Northern Ireland may change)
and only very short lengths of the TERN are under the control
of local authorities.
7.5 The Minister then comments that the Government
recognises that the draft Directive would support action to improve
road safety across the Community. But it has concerns that fully
implementing the proposal in Member States with mature road safety
management procedures may have cost implications that may not
necessarily lead to a positive contribution to road safety. It
thinks many of the specific requirements would appear to be targeted
at Member States with less mature procedures.
7.6 More specific points the Minister makes are:
- current requirements in the
UK for national roads, new roads and improvements, already meet
the general requirement to make an assessment of safety impacts.
Safety impact is assessed through comprehensive appraisal methodologies
that take safety and other factors into account. Cost benefit
analysis is also undertaken. A report only on road safety impacts
would require a significant change to the current processes and
it is unclear what the benefits may be of isolating safety from
other project goals;
- road safety audit procedure to expose individual
safety problems that have not been foreseen by road designers
is well established in the UK, which is seen as a world leader
in road safety audit. There is a national standard that was updated
in 2003;
- in relation to requirements to identify sections
of the TERN that are deemed to be high risk and sections with
high potential for reducing casualties and to target interventions
at those sections, current UK practice is in line with the broad
description of those requirements; and
- in relation to the requirement for warnings,
possibly including signposting, to warn road users about high-risk
sites or routes, the Government does not support black spot warning
signs for several reasons, which include the difficulty of defining
a black spot and that a sign on its own would convey no useful
message to drivers. Without firm prior evidence, including robust
cost-benefit ratios, that costs of sign erection are justified
the Government does not support the measures.
7.7 In the light of these points the Minister concludes
that the Government thinks it may be preferable to reduce the
length and detail of the draft Directive by setting only strategic
objectives, such as a requirement to produce national plans to
address infrastructure safety. This would allow some of the more
detailed concepts to be included in accompanying guidance notes,
permitting national interpretation and implementation, whilst
ensuring the Commission has sufficient powers to intervene more
strongly in those Member States where road safety management is
weak.
7.8 Turning to the financial aspects of the proposal
the Minister tells us that:
- the Commission's impact assessment
examines the economic, administrative and environmental and other
impacts of three policy options — no change, requiring Member
States to adopt guidelines and imposing harmonised legislation
for common infrastructure management, and concludes that the second
option is the best;
- given the degree of clarification of the proposal
needed it is difficult yet to fully estimate the time and cost
implications. Many of the costs associated with the proposal are
already incurred in the normal course of safety management in
the UK. But, dependant on the interpretation of the requirements
for road safety inspections, there is potential for additional
costs in the order of €3-5 million (£2.01-3.34 million)
annually;
- if implemented in accordance with an extreme
interpretation, the draft Directive would have implications of
additional bureaucracy and, in some cases, a consequence of inefficient
allocation of safety resources; and
- the Commission says that it is estimated that
the draft Directive would reduce the number dying on the TERN
by more than 600 annually and injury accidents by about 7,000
annually, with welfare benefits of more than € 2.4 billion
(£1.50 billion) annually.
7.9 The Minister also comments on subsidiarity, noting
that the Commission claims that ensuring a common high level of
safety of roads in all Member States cannot be sufficiently achieved
by them. He tells us that:
- for its part the Government
accepts the principle of involvement of the Community in certain
matters affecting Trans-European Networks, especially to improve
the road safety situations in countries where road infrastructure
safety management is weak;
- the Community has not previously legislated in
the area of road infrastructure safety;
- as far as it concerns the UK, for some of the
purposes of the draft Directive action could still be taken effectively
at the local level;
- a substantial amount of detail is yet unclear
and until the Government knows exactly how prescriptive the Commission
intends the proposal to be, it cannot make a final assessment
of the issue of subsidiarity; but
- it will be a Government objective in negotiation
to ensure that practices and procedures that are working well
in the UK are not undermined by external burdens.
7.10 Finally the Minister says that the Government
has not yet formally consulted interested parties, but it will
be engaging in discussions which will inform negotiations on the
draft Directive.
Conclusion
7.11 This draft Directive clearly may have some
utility. However, there are, as the Minister highlights, some
concerns. But we are unable to say at this stage whether there
are issues which we particularly wish to draw to the attention
of the House. Before considering the matter further we wish to
hear from the Minister in due course as to what extent negotiations
have:
- moved the proposal towards
a Directive based on strategic objectives and accompanying guidance
notes;
- clarified whether, if there has not been much
such movement, the Commission is planning a highly prescriptive
approach; and
- clarified the subsidiarity issue.
7.12 We note that the Minister has not yet conducted
consultations on this proposal. But we should like also to hear
about any views expressed by UK interested parties and to see
in due course a Regulatory Impact Assessment.
7.13 Meanwhile we do not clear the document.
19 (22660) 11932/01 (22776) 12597/01; see HC 152-xv
(2001-02), para 2 (30 January 2002) and Stg Co Deb, European
Standing Committee A, 13 March 2002, cols. 3-28 and (24592) 9713/03;
see HC 63-xxviii (2002-03), para 11 (2 July 2003).
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