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Road safety: presentation of the French government’s next action plan

02 Feb 2015 | By INSERM (Newsroom) | Uncategorized

Bernard Cazeneuve, French Minister of the Interior, presented a plan of action to address all causes of lack of road safety on Monday 26 January 2015. Comprising 26 measures, the plan is aimed at sensitising, alerting and educating road users, combating serious breaches of road safety, and making France’s infrastructure safer.[1]

In 2014, according to the French National Interministerial Observatory for Road Safety (ONISR), 3,388 people lost their lives on France’s roads, a figure which represents a 3.7% increase, or 120 more deaths than in 2013.

These measures include, in particular, a reduction in the legal blood alcohol level from 0.5 g/l (grams per litre of blood) to 0.2 g/l for young drivers, together with a reduction in the maximum authorised speed from 90 to 80 km/h on some roads for two years, in order to observe the effect on the number of accidents.

There are also plans for a ban on the use of all systems requiring earpieces, earbuds or headsets that could restrict the attention and hearing of drivers

According to the collective expert report “Téléphone et Sécurité Routière” (Telephones and Road Safety), telephone use while driving trebles the number of accidents.

In 2011, Inserm confirmed the hazard associated with using a telephone while driving in the collective expert report “Téléphone et Sécurité Routière.” This report highlights the growing use of “distractors,” such as embedded systems and touch screens, which when used while driving, although banned since 2008, disturb the driver’s concentration, seriously threatening his/her safety and that of other road users.

[1] Mr Bernard Cazeneuve’s speech presenting the action plan on road safety can be consulted on the Ministry of Interior website: http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/Le-ministre/Bernard-Cazeneuve/Interventions-du-ministre/26.01.2015-Discours-de-M.-Bernard-Cazeneuve-presentation-du-plan-d-action-pour-la-securite-routiere

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