For many years, in Italy, safety has not been considered as a priority and this can be proved by the lack of an appropriate legal and regulatory framework up to the second half of the '90s. Until this period, the only regulatory utilities in force were the 1959 National Highway Code - a set of laws for improving traffic conditions with no special regard to pedestrian problems and updated only in 1992 - and some series of prescriptions for infrastructure design not compulsory up to their 2001 edition. The first real step towards an increase of safety standards is the 1995 Urban Traffic Plan decree n. 146/24.6.95 by Ministry of Public Works (PUT), compulsory for all municipalities with over 30,000 inhabitants Nevertheless, the national accident rate has been growing steadily. In 2000, 211,941 accidents occurred involving persons. 6,410 were killed (13.2% were pedestrians) and 301,559 were injured (5.6% were pedestrians). About 75 % of accidents occurred in urban areas. Elderly are the most exposed: in 2000, 53% of all pedestrian fatalities involved persons aged over 65; 9.5% involved persons aged under 24 (2001 ISTAT Data). The average social cost for this problem has been estimated at about 22 million Euros per year. For the covering abstract see ITRD E135448.
Samenvatting