Road safety – Road safety: caution this summer! –

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Road safety: caution this summer !

Road safety - Road safety: caution this summer! -

Manuel Valls described as encouraging the results of the first half of 2013 of road accidents, pointing out that 257 lives have been saved since the start of the year. The Minister of the Interior nevertheless maintains the (re) pressure…

"A balance sheet can never be "Well" in itself", considered Manuel Valls in the introduction to the press conference which was held last Thursday in place Beauvau."Because behind the figures, there are dead, wounded, irreparably shattered destinies. But a record can be encouraging".

And this is currently the case, since a drop of -11.5% in road mortality has been observed on French roads since January 1, 2013. Hospital admissions have, for their part, fallen by – 6% compared to the first half of 2012.

"These results are encouraging but we should not be satisfied with them", immediately remarks the first cop in France who recalls the ambitious objective -"and it must be", he insists! – to drop below the 2,000 road fatalities mark by 2020 (read our).

The Minister of the Interior believes that it is still too early to analyze in depth the reasons for the drop in casualties on the roads of France, but does not forget to congratulate the work of his troops !

"Of course, we cannot rule out meteorological or economic elements.", he admits,"but I believe that in the first place what produces effects is the determined action carried out on our roads by the police, the gendarmes and all the actors of road safety".

On the right track ?

Determined to keep the 2013 curves for road accidents and victims below those of previous years, Manuel Valls explains that "reducing the number of deaths and injuries requires, in order to act better, to prevent better and to better punish, to properly identify the categories of road users". But two categories are (re) in the viewfinder…

The first is that of 18-24 year olds, those young adults who "make up nearly 9% of the population" But "still represent 20.6% of deaths and 20.4% of hospitalized injuries, especially due to alcohol and drugs", we are sorry Place Beauvau.

The second – which interests us in the first place – is that of users of motorized two-wheelers: "23% of people who die on the roads are in motorized two-wheelers, although these only represent 2.5% of road traffic", is still astonished the Minister of the Interior (who has probably not read the box"Eric de Seynes dots the i", in !).

"Even if the drop in motorcycle fatalities recorded in 2012 (-12.6%) continued in the first half of 2013 (-6.9%)"is obliged to note Mr. Valls,"at the start of summer, the month of June constitutes an alert: an increase of 30.2% in deaths compared to last year".

Compared to the fall (!) In moped mortality (-19.5%), the "slight decrease in the mortality of motorcyclists (-3.6%) results from a resumption of accidents (+ 20% in the second quarter compared to 2012) on the start of the motorcycling season (months of April, May, June), after an exceptionally calm period linked to very winter conditions (-38.4% in the first quarter compared to 2012)", specifies the national interministerial road safety observatory (OSNIR).

Not too fast !

One is entitled to wonder if the 11 bikers "saved" in France during the first half of 2013 will still be saved at the end of this summer. Especially since, despite its renewed promises last Thursday, the government is slow to reflect on "the place of two wheels – bicycles, like motorcycles – in our society".

Until then, the replacement of the first on-board radars deployed between 2004 and 2005 by latest generation models will continue at the rate of 100 pieces of equipment per year over the next three years. Nowadays, "46 have already been delivered", welcomes Manuel Valls.

"As of July 10, 2013, nearly 15,000 tickets had been sent following an offense detected by a new generation mobile radar. At this point, these new equipment (who hide in Megane, but will also be mounted in 208 from September, Editor’s note!) carried out more than 2,000 hours of checks and each recorded an average of 35 offenses per day", calculated his ministry.

"We must step up our action in the fight against excessive speed", insists the minister."This is a major cause of fatal accidents. Behavior must change: going too fast is deliberately putting the lives of others in danger". Be careful this summer therefore !

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