Irish Driving Instructors Association

EFA held it's 6 monthly meeting in Dublin, Ireland on 7th and 8th May 2010

IDIA Chairperson Cathy Bacon attended in her role of 2nd Vice President of EFA

and

Pauline Bohan, Paul Boylan, Kevin O’Byrne, and Toni Rust represented the IDIA and Ireland.

Election of Board of EFA

The outgoing Board consisting of

• President Gerhard von Bressensdorf – Germany,

• 1st Vice President Lars Gunnarson – Sweden

• 2nd Vice President Cathy Bacon – Ireland,

were proposed for re-election and were returned for a further three year term by the unanimous decision of the members.

New Memberships

• The Emirates Driving Company were confirmed as an Associate Member of EFA following a visit to Abu Dhabi by the Board of EFA in March were a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was agreed and signed between both organisations

• The Hong Kong Driving School was confirmed as an Associate Member of EFA. Mr Stephen Lui & Mr Julian Tse Kam Wah attended the meeting.

• The Swiss Driving Instructors Association - SFV (Schweizerischer Fahrlehrer Verband) - was confirmed as a member of EFA.

EU Matters

• Information was presented on the EU Directorate-General for Energy & Transport being split into the Directorate-General for Energy and the Directorate-General for Mobility & Transport creating a separate Directorate-General for Mobility & Transport.

• The EU Directive of Services and The EU Directive of Professional Drivers were reported on and discussed.

• Proposals were invited from EFA members for submission to the EU for the next strategy on Road Safety.

EU Projects

• Module Close To

• ERIC

• Hermes

were reported on and discussed.

ECOWILL

The new European project on Ecodriving called ECOWILL was introduced.

It will run from 1st May 2010 – 31st May 2013 and will focus on ecological driving producing fewer emissions and is targeted at both learners and drivers.

Mr Tarek Nazzal, ECOWILL Consultant to EFA attended the meeting.

Road Accident Statistics from across Europe

Up to date and very informative figures for road fatalities by year, by country, by type of user, type of vehicle and road accidents involving personal injury were presented.

Over the period 2000 – 2008 Ireland showed a reduction in Road fatalities of 32.3%, which is in line with the average across Europe but any road deaths will always be far too high.

There were also figures on Speed Limits and Blood Alcohol Limits (grams of alcohol in 1 litre of blood) across Europe

Generally Ireland fitted in with European Averages on speed limits however Ireland remains out of line on the blood alcohol limits at 0.8 along with Malta and the UK. The majority of other European countries have a limit of 0.5 with some at 0.2 or even 0.0

The IDIA as host association, would like to thank all who attended and contributed so much to a very successful meeting, despite unexpected difficulties caused by volcanic ash