The number of road deaths continues to grow every day. Did you know more than 3,200 people died in eight Danube area countries throughout 2019 alone, a similar number in 2018 and 2017?

It is often forgotten that the quality of road infrastructure plays an extremely important role in preventing road accidents! But the measures always seem expensive.

What if we could identify the riskiest roads and improve their safety based on the cost as opposed to the savings in deaths and injuries? What if we improve roadside safety by using safety barriers to stop vehicles running off the roads? We can save more than 1,600 deaths in Europe in a single year.

Road intersections also take many lives. We can save more than 2,000 lives by simply installing traffic signals or roundabouts and using cost-effective traffic calming treatments, such as speed bumps.

What percentage of Europe’s GDP will be saved by avoiding deaths and injuries on roads? How does this compare to the costs of improving infrastructure safety? Although estimates vary, road traffic crashes cost most countries 3 % of their GDP. Benefit-cost ratios show that for every Euro invested at least five lives will be saved, often much more.

That is why we do what we do.

To tackle the capacity of road safety specialists and national road safety authorities and to identify and reduce risk on roads using an innovative, independent, and international approach based on cost-benefit ratios. Above all, we do what we do because we want to contribute to BETTER road safety.

To show what we do in perspective, we have prepared infographics on four thematic areas (Safer Roads, Provisions for Vulnerable Road Users, Smart Speed Management Infrastructure, and Road Safety Near Schools). All four TAs are the most relevant for building blocks of future strategic management of infrastructure road safety in the Danube Area.

Click on the picture below to see infographics on the respective thematic area.

In the future, the RADAR team will be also taking into account the new situation that is a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic and amended RISM Directive requirements.