European Parliament
Ribeiro e Castro (UEN ),
in writing
(PT)
The adoption of any measure intended to improve road traffic safety is greatly to be welcomed. These measures, incidentally, present an urgent challenge – road accidents are the greatest cause of loss of human life in Europe. I therefore believe that the compulsory periodic training of drivers of heavy goods vehicles in all Member States is entirely appropriate.
With regard to goods transport, I have been calling for a long time for priority to be given to re-establishing rail transport and to revitalising short-sea maritime transport (or cabotage) and inland waterways, instead of focusing attention on the more than overloaded road system. For this reason, and in addition to the proposal before us, I support all the measures to encourage this re-balance between means of transport and a better use of transport networks at European level.

