Credit: Statec
On Wednesday 30 May 2018, Luxembourg's Minister for Sustainable Development and Infrastructure, Francois Bausch, held a press conference in which he reviewed the official report into road accidents across the Grand Duchy last year (2017).
Minister Bausch was joined by the officials of the Road Safety, Police Lëtzebuerg, the Prosecutor General and Statec at the press conference. "The measures of the Road Safety Action Plan established in 2014 have borne fruit. But as long as there are fatal casualties and serious injuries, I cannot be satisfied. We must continue our efforts in the fight against road insecurity," insisted the minister.
From the outset, Minister Bausch raised the highlights of the 2017 assessment, namely a historic minimum of 25 killed. Speed is still a dominant cause of road accidents and the main perpetrators are men aged 25 to 44. Accidents in relation to fixed obstacles (trees) are decreasing, following considerable efforts in the installation of "glissières" (10 kilometers in 2017, including a total of 3.5 kms alongside trees).
Despite the measures taken to improve the safety of motorcyclists, no positive result is noticeable. Since the beginning of this year, several serious motorcycle accidents have occurred, while the motorcycle season has just begun. Several motorcyclists have already lost their lives on the roads of the Grand Duchy in 2018.
In view of this dramatic development, Minister Francois Bausch and Minister Etienne Schneider decided to take joint action to combat road safety. Additional devices will be put in place in the short term, both in terms of prevention, repression, and in terms of infrastructure, such as the introduction of new panels more relevant announcing a particularly dangerous route for motorcyclists, police checks targeting mainly motorcyclists and a Fit for Your Bike training offer increased. In addition, there is a pilot project that involves the affixing of specific markings to encourage motorcyclists to keep a safe distance from the centre line of the road, to allow safer driving in turns.
"The assessment of 2017 is therefore rather encouraging and we will continue our fight against road insecurity in the objective of zero vision, thus zero deaths and zero serious injuries on our roads," concluded Minister Bausch.
