A campaign to halve the number of people killed on EU roads to 20,000 a year was launched today with a call for car makers and transport companies to sign up to a new Europe-wide safety charter.
The European Commission said about 40,000 people were killed each year in road accidents in European Union states. This compared with about 100 a year in airline disasters, according to EU data.
A person was nearly 15 times more likely to die in a car accident than in a commercial airliner for each kilometre travelled, the 2001 figures showed.
Among EU states, Greece and Portugal had the highest death tolls, at 180 and 163 respectively per million inhabitants in 2001. The lowest was Britain at 60 per million.
The Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, said: "This (road safety) charter is welcome and represents a significant step forward in the acceptance by all EU countries that this carnage on the roads of Europe each year must stop."
Mr Brennan was addressing a conference where delegates were asked to sign up to the charter and commit to various steps to reduce road deaths.
This could include car makers making warning sounds for unfastened seat belts mandatory rather than optional in their vehicles, said EU Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio.
Insurance companies, schools and youth organisations could also join in the initiative, she added.
The Commission said the main causes of road deaths were speeding, the failure to use seatbelts and drunk driving.