About 40000 people have been killed in road transport crashes in the European Union annually in recent years. If we add to this figure the number of people killed in road crashes in the 10 new EU member states, the total number of fatalities is more than 50000 each year.

There is no need to accept this as an inevitable consequence of our motorised road transport system. On the contrary, abundant evidence is available that a substantial reduction in the number of fatalities, injuries and socio-economic costs can be accomplished if proper actions are taken. This can be argued based on the large differences in road safety performance among countries.

The SUNflower+6 project aims to identify differences in the road safety performance of different European countries, by a comparative study of the development of road safety. In the SUNflower project this approach has been applied successfully for the SUN countries (Sweden, United Kingdom and the Netherlands), that have safety records that are among the best in the world. Using the SUNflower-methodology, the study is continued and extended with four Southern European countries or regions (Greece, Portugal, Spain and Catalonia) and three Central European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia).