https://vimeo.com/924583928?share=copy
Rome, March 18, 2024 - Relatives of road victims have appealed to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to stop the approval of the new Road Traffic Code. The reform, sponsored by Transport Minister and Lega party leader Matteo Salvini, is being discussed and voted on by the Chamber of Deputies this week.
Families of road victims offered Meloni and her government to rewrite together the parts of the law that go in the opposite direction of greater road safety for all road users.
LINK TO DOWNLOAD THE VIDEO VERTICAL / HORIZONTAL WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES: https://we.tl/t-7HrBFTLa4a
LINK TO SEE THE ENGLISH VIDEO: https://vimeo.com/924583928?share=copy
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The request is contained in a video sent last week to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, featuring Marco Scarponi, brother of Michele Scarponi, world famous professional cyclist who was hit and killed by a truck driver in 2017; Angela Bedoni, mother of Lucia Pozzi, who was hit and killed by an SUV driver on Christmas night 2004; and Emanuela Bottardi, daughter of Anna Milanesi, killed in 2008 in a by an SUV driver who hit her car while overtaking illegally before an intersection.
All these personal tragedies have one element in common: if motor vehicles travelled at slower speeds, many lives would be saved.
According to mobility and road safety experts, the new Road Traffic Code significantly worsens road safety conditions, making controls more difficult, paving the way for higher speed limits, limiting pedestrian and cycling mobility. The new code contains only a few norms that might improve road safety, such as making alcolock devices compulsory and harsher sanctions for driving under the influence of drugs. However, road collisions linked to abuse of drugs or alcohol account for just 5% of the total.
In Italy road collisions claim over 3,000 lives every single year. 73% of all road collisions happen in cities, which is why many Italian mayors have been spearheading changes in urban mobility systems, promoting walking and cycling, and reducing access and the average speed of motor vehicles in dense urban areas. The new Road Code will effectively prevent mayors from implementing new cycling infrastructure, installing speed cameras on roads with speed limits below 50km/h, and barring access to certain streets or parts of the city to most categories of vehicles.
The video featuring relatives of road victims has been sent to PM Meloni through a mailbombing that involved more than 10.000 people: www.codicedellastrage.it
The video follows the appeal (https://bit.ly/appellofamiliari) that all 16 Italian associations of road victims' families had released just a month ago, where - they wrote - “we recommend that the measures under discussion, such as the reform of the road code and the ministerial decree on speed cameras, do not weaken but indeed strengthen the possibilities for reducing speed, electronic speed controls and distraction, limited traffic zones, means and interventions in favour of sustainable mobility”. Appeal that - however - has not yet been heard by the Government nor by Parliament.
“We wanted to address directly Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, as the highest representative of the Italian Government, so that she understands first hand the risks and responsibility of the bill that Parliament seems intent on voting on, asking her to make a direct intervention. Specifically, we ask President Meloni to open a technical discussion table where - starting from our stories - a single criterion should guide the rewriting of the Code: the protection of human life, the only thing that guides us in action” declared Stefano Guarneri (Lorenzo Guarnieri Onlus Association), Filippo Randi (European Federation of Road Traffic Victims (https://fevr.org/) and Italian Association of Road Victims' Families APS, and Marco Scarponi (general secretary of the Michele Scarponi Foundation).
“Not only the new road code - continued Guarneri, Randi, and Scarponi - but also the Autovelox Decree scheme seem to compose a picture where the interest of the Ministry of Transport goes in the opposite direction to the protection of life on the road and the protection of vulnerable users: there is still time to intervene, if President Meloni intends to save human lives”.
