European Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc met with representatives of the Ministry of the Interior and Slovenian police on 20 July 2018.
The Commissioner praised the Slovenian police for managing to sustain a high level of traffic safety activities despite increased focus on protecting the Schengen border and preventing illegal migration. The efforts have paid off as in 2017 Slovenia recorded higher level of traffic safety than ever before - the number of road fatalities was 104 or 51 per one million inhabitants.
Minister Vesna Györkös Žnidar and Director General of the Police Simon Velički discussed with the Commissioner the challenges awaiting the Slovenian police in the field of road traffic safety.
They presented to the Commissioner measures to reach the set goals by 2022, when the period of the National Programme for Road Traffic Safety finishes, and the activities performed by the police as regards the modernisation of road traffic control (plans for introducing new technology such as section speed control systems and automatic number plate recognition systems) and processing traffic accidents.
The discussion also touched on the issue of freight traffic, which according to the Commissioner is choking many European countries and the European Commission is making every effort to draw up clear rules to provide supervisory authorities with good conditions to carry out improved supervision.
Commissioner Bulc presented the European Commission’s long-term activities to be implemented by 2050 in the field of road traffic, pointing out especially infrastructure, vehicle development (anticipated gradual transition to self-driving vehicles) and measures aimed at changing the behaviour of road users. All these measures will have an important impact on the work of the police and the Commissioner stressed that the police will have to actively monitor the changes and adapt to them.
TISPOL was mentioned several times during the discussion as the Commission sees it as an important partner. She particularly pointed out project EDWARD, which will bring the expert and general public together on 19 September 2018 in their endeavours for a day without fatalities on Europe’s roads.
Participants of the working meeting reiterated the resolve to keep road traffic safety high on the list of priorities of the police as this is the only way to maintain favourable traffic safety trends.