There were many who assumed that the Brussels bureaucrats behind the European Union’s road safety action plan were being woefully naïve when they first proposed a target of halving road deaths within a decade. Yet the evidence indicates that this is actually happening.

While the first EU programme missed the target, it nonetheless managed a respectable cut of 44% from 54,302 in 2001 to 2010. But a close look at the annual statistics – released by the European Commission on July 5 - shows how well it is working: between 2009 and 2010, road fatalities in the EU fell by a whopping 11%.

A second ten-year programme was launched last year, again with a target of halving road deaths. If the trend from last year continues over the coming decade, it means that the EU could actually see road deaths cut by two thirds when the programme ends in 2020.

The statistics are worth looking at in closer detail. The overall fall masks major variations amongst the member states, with the best performers last year being Luxembourg (33%), Malta (29%), Sweden (26%), and Slovakia (26%). Over the decade as a whole, the biggest falls were in Latvia (61%, from 236 deaths per million to 97), Lithuania (58%, from 202 to 90), and Spain (55%, from 135 to 54). And the lowest fatality rates overall? Sweden, at 28 deaths per million, followed by the UK at 31 deaths , the Netherlands at 32, and Malta at 36. The most dangerous roads are in the eastern parts of the EU: the highest rate last year was registered in Greece with 116 deaths per million inhabitants, followed by Romania (111) and Poland and Bulgaria (both at 102).

EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas welcomed the news. "It is very encouraging that nearly all Member States have managed to significantly reduce their number of road deaths, there is no room for complacency,” he said. "A hundred people still die on Europe's roads every day. We have made good progress since 2001 and we have succeeded in saving nearly 100,000 lives.”

Indeed. While it might be hard to make a direct correlation between particular measures and safer roads, logic and probability suggests that the EU can claim credit for this. While in 2001, there were 112 traffic fatalities per million inhabitants, the number had dropped to 62 in 2010.

Of course, the momentum has to be maintained if death rate is to continue falling. The EU road safety action plan for 2011-20 sets out a mix of initiatives focusing on making improvements to vehicles, infrastructure and road users' behavior. The seven strategic objectives are improved safety measures for trucks and cars, building safer roads, developing intelligent vehicles, strengthening licensing and training, better enforcement, targeting injuries, and new focus on motorcyclists.

The success of the EU’s first road safety programme has helped inspire the global scheme launched this year by the World Health Organisation: its plan for a ‘Decade of Action on Road Safety’ aims to save 5 million lives between now and 2020. Like the EU programme, the WHO addresses road safety from a number of perspectives: technologies and innovation, road infrastructure, transport networks, vehicle safety, and road user behaviour. It will involve road safety awareness events will involving public institutions to private companies and associations, with activities.

In Europe, enforcement is a key factor, and one measure that is expected to have an effect was voted through by the European Parliament on July 6: legislation which will make it harder for drivers to avoid punishment for traffic offences committed in another EU country.

The proposal would grant member states mutual access to each others’ vehicle registration data, to allow for the necessary exchange of data between the country in which the offence was committed and that in which the car was registered. The nature of offences and the penalties prescribed are not being harmonised, so the laws of the country where the offence occurred will apply. But the offences could cover speeding, failing to stop at traffic lights, failing to wear seatbelts, drink driving, driving under influence of drugs, failing to wear safety helmets, illegal use of an emergency lane, and illegal use of mobile phone while driving.

As Kallas says, there is still some way to go. Speeding, drink driving and not wearing a seat belt are the leading causes of road deaths, but policy makers also need to look at other issues, like badly maintained roads and unsafe vehicles. They need to ask why 17% of road deaths involve motorbike or moped users even though they make up just 2% of road users…