In Europe alone AIT and FIA affiliated clubs represent the voice of more than 45 million motoring consumers and more than 100 million motorists world wide. In the case of the FIA, which is also the governing body of world motorsport, there is a responsibility to not only implement the most demanding safety standards achievable in racing, but to also ensure that the safety lessons learned from the track can and are applied to the road. Every year 43,000 people are killed and a further 1.6 million are injured on Europe's roads. It is clearly the AIT and FIA's responsibility to act as a driving force in the campaign to reduce these tragic deaths and injuries. Over the past five years the AIT and FIA's road safety strategy in Europe has focused on three main areas: Campaigning to improve safety legislation, most successfully in updating and toughening crash test legislation for front and side impacts; Secondly, improving the comparative information available to consumers on car safety design, principally through the European New Car Assessment Programme or Euro NCAP; Thirdly, campaigning to raise driver safety awareness through initiatives like the pan-European `10 seconds...' campaign. In a bid to take road safety campaigning in Europe forward, the FIA will launch a new road safety policy document which is called `Formula Zero' at the French Grand Prix in July. The publication of the document will coincide with the beginning of the French Presidency of the EU. The `Formula Zero' document outlines an approach to road safety which has defined safety policy in motorsport for more than twenty years. A similar and far reaching road safety philosophy called `Vision Zero' was introduced by the Swedish Government in 1997. (A)
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