Foreign drivers caught speeding in another European Union country will face tougher penalties, the European Commission said today.
People driving while abroad account for an average of 35 percent of the speeding tickets issued in 2004, according to a report on road safety across the EU.
"The Commissioner will urge transport ministers to address this issue and come up with stricter and better legislation to combat this problem," a spokeswoman for EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot said.
"As it stands there is no real legislation in this area and many drivers when they are abroad drive in the belief that they will not face prosecution."
The Commission believes speeding fines should be bigger and laws are too vague when it comes to drivers on foreign roads, with member states not following through enough when it comes to the collection of fines or the prosecution of offenders.
The Commission will deliver its mid-term review on road safety to EU transport ministers during a meeting in March before publishing its proposals in April on increasing road safety by the end of the decade.
Today's report says the EU is unlikely to achieve its 2001 goal of reducing road deaths to 25,000 by 2010 - halving the current average. It says the figure will reach 32,500.
"As it stands, we are looking at 115 deaths a day which is unacceptable and we must do everything we can to reduce this number," Mr Barrot said.
However, there was some good news with a 14 per cent drop in the average number of fatalities in the past five years.
New cars on old roads mean the newest countries of the European Union now have the highest number of road deaths of the 25 member states, the report said.
Latvia, with 44,451 deaths in 2004, leads the table for deaths per head of population, followed by Lithuania with an increase of seven per cent.
The Czech Republic increased by four per cent with a five per cent jump in Hungary and three per cent in Poland. Cyprus saw a 19 per cent jump in fatalities from 2001 to 2004.
Motorways account for only 5 per cent of all road accidents and 9 per cent of fatalities.
Britain, Netherlands and Sweden are best when it comes to road safety, while France has improved the most - reducing the number of accidents by 32 per cent from 2001 to 2004.