Transport ministers of the V4 countries, Austria and Slovenia met in Prague to discuss an improvemen

Transport ministers of the Visegrad Four member states along with representatives from Austria, Slovenia, and the European Commission met in Prague today to negotiate on a road safety. At the joint meeting, which was a culmination of the Czech Presidency of the V4 in the transport area, was adopted a Prague Declaration that aims to reduce the number of fatalities on roads and to cooperate in securing safer mobility of citizens.

Every day, 70 people die on European roads specifically because of the reckless or careless driving. The signatories of the Prague Declaration, representatives of the member states of the Visegrad Four along with the representatives of Slovenia pledged to work together to reduce the number of fatal accidents by 50% and serious accidents by 40% by 2020 as compared to 2010.
The meeting was dedicated primarily to an organization and funding of prevention programs, driver education, and traffic education. Another topic concerned sanctions for infringement of traffic rules and cross-border exchange of information on offenses. All the participating countries also deal with the issue of how to handle the traffic risk groups which include both novice drivers and those with misdemeanor recurrence, i.e. those who have been banned from driving.
"I have verified during the negotiations that our proposed amendment to the points system is something that is proven in neighboring countries, and it encouraged me that our proposed approach will further be developed. I sincerely hope that we get a broad support in the proposal that wants to prosecute road pirates and protect decent drivers,“ commented Minister Tok. Young drivers, according to the plan of the Ministry, would have a maximum point limit reduced by half to 6 points for the first two years of driving. The Ministry will further discuss the proposal with the expert public and lawmakers during a seminar.
The Czech Transport Ministry also introduced a REPADO project which focuses on reducing recidivism among perpetrators of crimes and offenses in traffic and it passed a pilot testing in 2010-2015. As a part of the pilot study was primarily carried out a cooperation with convicted drivers who have committed a crime in traffic, first-time perpetrators of moderately serious offenses who are sentenced to prison, and the general population, especially drivers with no points or those who did not pass a traffic-psychological examination.
V4 countries object to carrier-damaging norms
V4 countries at today's meeting also objected to a measure of some European Union member states in a social field which, of course, severely disadvantage carriers from other EU countries. "Some countries, for example, want to make it impossible for drivers to sleep in trucks. It is not so much a question of social dumping but rather a question of violation of the principle of free movement of people and goods. We want to clearly define ourselves against it,“ said Minister Tok after the meeting." We agreed that our common position on these standards will pass in the coming weeks on EU Commissioner Violeta Bulc. Besides the V4 countries, we have a support in this matter from the other 11 states,“ added Tok.