Report published in Brussels, yesterday.

The safest roads in the whole of the EU area are British roads.

Best we metricate them then - that way we can "harmonize" with the rest of Europe by having a similar number of deaths as them.

Britain: 60 deaths per million
Average in EU (including Britain's figure): 104.

Ireland? (sorry "Irish Government"?) Are you listening?

Steve, do you have a URL or other reference for the report?

Sorry - read it in a colleague's newspaper.

The Sun and the Times had it.
Perhaps look at the sun webpage? I don't know if its the same as the paper itself

"The Sun and the Times had it."

Practically verbatim then!

Why exactly do the Sun care what the EU thinks? Surely the assertion that Britain has safe roads is Euro propaganda full of lies and deceipt?

<<"The Sun and the Times had it."

Practically verbatim then!>>

Sorry - forgot - you don't agree with those papers thus they cannot be correct.

"Why exactly do the Sun care what the EU thinks? Surely the assertion that Britain has safe roads is Euro propaganda full of lies and deceipt?"

No it was a result of an EU wide investigation into road safety.

I found an older EU document on road safety and it shows the following figures for road deaths per million population:

Country 1991 2001
B 188 145
DK 118 81
D 142 85
EL 207 180
E 227 137
F 184 138
IRL 126 108
I 143 111
L 216 156
NL 85 68
A 200 118
P 326 163
FIN 126 84
S 87 66
UK 82 60

EU 153 105


As you can see, Sweden and the Netherlands are very close to Britain, Germany has made a significant improvement and Ireland lies somewhere in the "middle of the pack".

From my own experiences based on working in the Netherlands, Germany and Italy for three years, metrication has little if any role to play in the differences - things that are important are a drink-drive culture, road construction, basic road rules like "Priority from the Right etc".

Harmonisation covers many fields - for example the UK overhaul of road signs in the late 1960's was driven by harmonisation. Similarly, the near-abandonment of "Prioriry frm the Right" on the Continent was our COntinental neighbours copying us.

I know that the Council of Europe is looking at further harmonisation of road signs - one of the things that they are looking at is when to use green signs and when to use blue signs when signpositng motorways and trunk roads. It seems that Europe is evenly split on this question with Britain, Germany, France, and the Benelux countries using blue fopr motorways while Switzerland and Italy (among others) use green for motorways.

"Sorry - forgot - you don't agree with those papers thus they cannot be correct."

The Sun in particular is known for sensationalising stories and actually changing facts to pursue its own brand of 'journalism'.

"No it was a result of an EU wide investigation into road safety."

I look forward to future Murdoch press reports about true facts associated with the EU, including reports based on properly conducted EU studies.

"It seems that Europe is evenly split on this question with Britain, Germany, France, and the Benelux countries using blue fopr motorways while Switzerland and Italy (among others) use green for motorways."

Belgium uses green for motorways, not blue.

Ross - maybe you should have read Martin's post before verbally vomiting onto your keyboard.

Tip 1: Feet don't taste nice
Tip 2: I have a special pie available for you.

(I'm not being too cryptic am I?)

I would say that the road accident figures have more to do with the driving skills of the nations involved rather than anything else.

For example, the French drive like bloody idiots while the Greeks drive like suicidal maniacs !

Of course, it does show how thin the excuses are for the current proliferation of "road safety" cameras.

It's nothing to do with millions of pounds from speeding fines, honest guv !