http://www.euronews.com/ Approximately 100 people have been killed today in the European Union, the same was true of yesterday and it will probably be the same tomorrow – on our roads. What are we doing about it? Could we do more?

Ellen Townsend, the Policy Director of the European Transport Safety Council answers your questions on I talk.

“Hello, I’m Katarina from Germany. My question is, why are there different speed limits on European motorways?”

Alex Taylor: “A very basic question. Why is it in Germany there’s no limit sometimes on the motorway and other countries have very different limits – why?”

Ellen Townsend: “Well this is an area where we would really like to see more harmonisation, especially having one, top limit. Speed kills and the bigger the speed the bigger the mess. Therefore taking all different sorts of measures to manage speed, including setting speed limits and enforcing them through police checks, safety cameras.”

Alex Talyor interrupts: “But it’s a matter for national governments to decide still, isn’t it?”

Ellen Townsend: “Yes, to a certain extent yes but we would like to see one common speed limit on the trans-European network which after all is an area where the EU does have a competency.”

Alex Taylor: “OK, let’s have another question on road safety.”

“Hello my name is Axel, I live in Brussels, Belgium. So, I’ve seen there’s been a rise in crashes due to distractions when driving such as texting and driving, calling and driving. I was wondering what the impact is of these new technologies on our driving behaviour? Now ipods and iphones are everywhere, we can go on the internet from everywhere, even from your car, so do you happen to have research about it – the number of crashes due to drivers checking their Facebook account? Thank you very much.”

Alex Taylor: “Not necessarily just Facebook but it’s true that I often see people just texting.”

Ellen Townsend: “Yeah, we live in a much more connected society. We have research that shows between 20 and 30 percent of all crashes are caused by what we call distractions. That could be distraction by using a mobile phone, either talking on it or texting.”

Alex Taylor interrupts: “What about smoking, what about talking to people?”

Ellen Townsend: “Yeah but the issue about talking on the phone, even if it’s hands-free is that your brain is somewhere else and the person you’re talking to isn’t going to see that you’re coming up to a traffic light or a roundabout, that needs your attention. So we would very much support blocking out any use, be it checking the Blackberry, or Faceboook whilst driving.”

Alex Taylor interrupts: “What about smoking? I mean, it takes movements for the hands. What’s your position on that?”

Ellen Townsend: “It’s another form of distraction, when you’re driving you need to have your full attention on the road.”

Alex Taylor: “OK, let’s have another webcam question here on I talk.”

“Hello my name is Pasi and I’m from Finland. What is the European Union doing about motorcycle safety?”

Alex Taylor: “The number of car crashes has gradually been going down, although that’s starting to slow down now, but motorcycles are still as bad.”

Ellen Townsend: “Yes, that’s one of the priority areas for us, for my organisation and also for the European Union and rightly so. At the moment, power, two wheelers make up make up 16 percent of total deaths but they’re only travelling 2 percent of all the kilometres travelled so the relative risk is very very high.”

Alex Taylor interrupts: “So would you say it’s more the bikers faults? Or more, the people people who don’t take care about the bikers?”

Ellen Townsend: “I think for sure, more needs to be done about increasing the awareness of the other road users but in terms of the bikers there is new legislation being discussed at the moment which would bring in advanced braking systems so that’s a good thing and the police should also be playing a role in terms of forcing helmet wearing but also we need to explain the risks of not wearing a helmet, especially now it’s hot, not just in the south of Europe and people are tempted to leave their helmets at home.”

Alex Taylor: “OK, this is a subject that’s had a lot of webcam questions here’s another one on I talk.”

“Hello, my name is Tarik Huber; I am from Bosnia-Herzegovina. More often than not, we’re hearing about technology that’s developed entirely by computers, where the human beings are merely observers. Do you think it’s right to use these technologies in the future and can we completely exclude the human factor from the roads?”

Find us on:
Youtube http://bit.ly/zr3upY
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/euronews.fans
Twitter http://twitter.com/euronews

source