The European Cyclists’ Federation and its 65 members in 39 countries call upon the European Union and all national, regional and local governments to make the coming 10 years a decade for more and safer cycling. The individual health benefits of cycling greatly outweigh any risks involved — not to mention the benefits to the environment and quality of life. The current reality is that many people do not cycle at all because of safety fears. These fears need to be tackled now. In particular the most vulnerable members of society — children, elderly, disabled — have been the victims of a transport system that has focused for too long on automobile mobility. What we need is a new culture of city and transport planning that fully respects everyone’s basic right to safe mobility. In this respect, governments at all levels should embrace the Safety in Numbers principle, recognising that cycling gets safer the more people do it. The ECF and signatory cities of the Charter of Brussels ask the EU to set a target of at least 15 % of the share of cycling in the modal share in trips in Europe by 2020. With more people cycling, authorities need to provide cycling infrastructure in urban areas ensuring continuity in the form of comprehensive and safe cycle route networks. Although the EU’s target of halving road deaths by 2010 will not be reached, it has contributed to at least a 30% reduction in deaths over the past decade. We therefore strongly support renewed targets in the forthcoming Road Safety Action Programme (4th RSAP). Within this, ECF asks for a set of measures to be implemented in order to halve injury and fatality rates for cyclists between 2010 and 2020. While ECF also supports an overall target in absolute numbers for the forthcoming decade for all transport users, we stress that it is important to ensure that simple casualty and fatality reduction targets do not deter national and local authorities from pursuing the aim of more (as well as safer) cycling: the Safety in Numbers evidence shows that they can and should go hand in hand. Therefore, the forthcoming Road Safety Action Programme at European level should also set “rate-based” targets for cyclist safety, measured in number of km’s cycled (or per trip, or per hour). (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting