Automobile demagoguery against road safety

eIn matters of road safety and environmental protection too, poor choices lead to many deaths. This truth, less widely accepted than that of health, should be taken into account by policymakers in France, where the roads kill more than 3,000 people and leave more than 3,000 injured each year. The State Council gives two months, Thursday 1^Eh June, the government’s decision to implement technical controls on motorized two-wheelers only underscores the executive’s reluctance to materialize decisions meant to protect the environment and save lives.

Seemingly innocuous, the measure was considered so politically inflammable that the President of the Republic announced its non-use in August 2021, the day after the publication of the decree intended to introduce it. “Now is not the time to bother the French”, Then, a few months before his presidential campaign, Emmanuel Macron decided to take inspiration from the formula of his predecessor, Georges Pompidou. In July 2022, a new decree translated the choice of the president.

No convincing arguments

But three months later, the state board, which was taken over by three associations campaigning for air quality and road safety, repealed that last text. “excess of power” and reinstated the 2021 resolution. “Extremely high road deaths among French two-wheelers” compared to other categories and neighboring countries. In fact, while motorized two-wheelers make up less than 2% of road traffic, almost one in four deaths is their user. However, after the October 2022 decision, the government again turned a deaf ear, prompting a new summary appeal, which was upheld on Thursday by the Council of State, ordering it to issue an implementing decree. .

Environmental protection and road safety should represent “great national causes” supported by sustainable strategies, explained and discussed, protected from demagogic temptations. However, neither the abandonment of the national standard of 80 km/h on secondary roads, championed by former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, nor the decision by Interior Minister Gérald Darmanini to remove penalties for “minor” speeding. It proved convincing.

In addition, the obligation for periodic inspections of motorized two-wheelers stems from the 2014 European Directive. Emmanuel Macron and the transport minister, Clement Bonn, do not want to use it under pressure from the biker lobby, intensifying the speeches that see Behind every binding decision is the “Brussels stranglehold” and condemns the “government of judges” during every call for order. A paradox for two openly pro-European personalities.

At the time when the head of the executive power is worried about A “Decivilization Process”Why should we not consider that the behavior of citizens while using individual means of transport is precisely the respect of others for the health and life of each one, one of the signs of our civilization? As for the arguments for restricting freedoms, it is enough to recall the endless debates a few decades ago about the obligation to wear seat belts or child restraints in cars to put them in perspective.