Tue. Apr 1st, 2025

Road safety: EU lawmakers endorse deal on robust investigations of traffic offences

Mar 13, 2024
accident, driver escape, offense
Traffic offences to be investigated more robustly in the EU. Photo by Alexas_Fotos on Pixabay
Strasbourg, 12 March 2024

  • More traffic offences will trigger cross-border investigation, e.g. dangerous parking and hit and run
  • Tighter deadlines to reply to assistance requests and issue offence notice
  • Online portal to improve citizens information

On Tuesday, Parliament and Council negotiators reached an informal deal strengthening EU member state cooperation in the cross-border investigation of traffic offences.

To prevent reckless driving while abroad, the updated rules will expand the list of traffic offences committed by non-resident drivers that trigger cross-border assistance possibly resulting in a fine for dangerous drivers. In addition to speeding, drink-driving or failing to stop at a red traffic light, EU legislators added dangerous parking and overtaking, crossing a solid line and hit and run offences, amongst other offences.

Mutual assistance and clear deadlines

With approximately 40% of cross-border offences currently going unpunished, MEPs secured more robust assistance procedures between EU countries and an obligation to help find a person liable for a traffic offence. The deal obliges EU country to reply to this kind request without any undue delay, but not later than two months after it gathered all necessary information. In addition, upon request of the country in which the offence occurred, the offender’s EU country of residence can take over the collection of road traffic fines, provided it is higher than 70 euro and has not been paid after all legal actions are exhausted.

The EU country where the traffic offence occurred will have eleven months from the date of the offence to issue a traffic offence notice. The deal also lists the main elements of this offence notice, which, in addition to the time and circumstances of the offence, has to provide information on how to appeal the fine.

MEPs also managed to negotiate a provision whereby two year after new rules will be transposed into national law private entities will be totally banned from helping EU countries to collect traffic fines from foreign drivers.

Online portal

To increase transparency and facilitate the implementation of the new rules, the Commission is tasked with creating an online portal listing the rules, appeal options and the relevant road traffic fines, amongst other information.

Quote

EP rapporteur Kosma Złotowski (ECR, PL) said: “A foreign number plate cannot be a licence for impunity on the road. The updated rules will facilitate the exchange of information on road traffic offenders between member states, while ensuring drivers have easy access to the necessary information through digital communication channels.”

“We managed to extend the scope of the rules only in those areas where it can have a real impact on reducing the number of accidents, including those involving vulnerable road users. We have significantly strengthened the position of drivers, who must be given adequate and timely information in a language they understand about their rights and the procedure for appealing against a penalty.”

Next steps

The preliminary deal still needs to be approved by Council and Parliament. EU countries will have 30 months to transpose new provisions into national law and prepare for its implementation.

Background

The deal on cross border exchange of information on traffic offences rules complements another EU legislation dealing with drivers’ disqualification on which Parliament established its position in February. Both pieces of legislation are part of the Road safety package presented by the Commission in March 2023. The package aims to improve safety for all road users, facilitate the enforcement of traffic rules across borders and to modernise driving licence rules.

Further information

Source – EU Parliament

 

Road safety: EU Council on deal for better cooperation on road-safety-related traffic offences

12 March 2024, 23:05

To ensure safer road traffic across Europe, the Council presidency and European Parliament’s negotiators reached a provisional agreement on a proposal amending the 2015 directive on cross-border exchange of information on road-safety-related traffic offences. The new legislation forms part of the so-called ‘road safety’ legislative package.

Stricter and more efficient rules on enforcing penalties for traffic offences, including violations of vehicle access restrictions, will improve safety on European motorways and guarantee safer and greener residential areas across the EU. The revised legislation also ensures equal treatment for all EU drivers irrespectively of their nationality. We are delighted for having reached a quick agreement with the European Parliament on this file.

Georges Gilkinet, Belgian minister for mobility

Main elements of the new legislation

The revised directive aims to ensure that non-resident drivers respect the traffic rules when driving in other EU member states.

The general thrust of the Commission proposal was retained by the provisional agreement. The co-legislators introduced, however, several changes to the proposal, mainly aiming to clarify the scope and the definitions of the legal act. These entail amongst others:

  • introducing the concept of the ‘person concerned’ and clarifying the roles and responsibilities of the national contact points and the competent authorities
  • adding more offences to the revised legislation, such as cases of not respecting vehicle access restrictions, or rules at a railway level-crossing, crossing a solid line, dangerous overtaking, dangerous parking, wrong-way driving, use of overloaded vehicles, as well as hit-and-run cases
  • further clarification of the different procedures related to accessing vehicle registration data and the different options for competent authorities to ask mutual assistance with a view to making sure that the person concerned is identified and that the traffic offence notice arrives to the right place within a reasonable time frame
  • all necessary safeguards put in place to protect the fundamental rights of the driver or any other person concerned, including by setting a clear framework to ban any abuse by private entities involved in the process of road-safety traffic offences, and better mechanisms for the protection of personal data.
Next steps

Today’s provisional agreement must be endorsed by the Council and the European Parliament before formal adoption of the legislative act. From the Council’s side, the Belgian presidency intends to submit the compromise text to the member states’ representatives (Coreper) for approval as soon as possible. Once approved, the text will be submitted to a legal/linguistic review before being formally adopted by both co-legislators, published in the EU’s Official Journal, and entering into force 20 days after this publication. Member states will have 30 months to transpose the provisions of the revised directive into their national legislation.

Background information

In its EU road safety policy framework 2021-2030, the Commission recommitted to the ambitious aim to get close to zero deaths and zero serious injuries on EU roads by 2050 (“Vision Zero”), as well as to the medium-term goal to reduce deaths and serious injuries by 50% by 2030. However, road fatalities were up 4% last year from 2021, according to latest Commission data. This is still 9 % below pre-pandemic level, but the pace of improvement is not sufficient to reach the above-mentioned goals.

The proposal in question form part of the ‘road safety package’, adopted by the Commission on 1 March 2023, which also comprises a new regime for driving licences and a new proposal on driver disqualifications, where a disqualification in a member state leads to follow-up action of the member state which issued the driving licence. On 2 June 2023, the Transport Council took note of a progress report and on 4 December 2023 adopted a general approach on this file. Kosma Zlotowski (ECR/PL) is the European Parliament’s rapporteur and two trilogues took place on 14 December 2023 and 6 February 2024 in Strasbourg.

Source – EU Council

 

Forward to your friends