Athens News Agency: News in English, 07-04-22

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Nat'l Road Safety Conference held in Thessaloniki

[02] Sarkozy and Royal pass on to 2nd round

[01] Nat'l Road Safety Conference held in Thessaloniki

According to a speaker from the Transport Institute of Greece (IME), one in five road accidents involving lorries and trucks led to a fatality, a rate more than double that for all types of vehicles.

In 2004, for example, there were 608 accidents involving trucks, of which 130 led to the death of one or more people. This represented a rate of 21.4%, compared with 9.5% for vehicle accidents generally.

Collisions with private cars were the most frequent form of accident involving trucks, accounting for 33.1 percent of the total, of which 18.4% involved a fatality. Next most frequent were collisions with two-wheeled vehicles (motorcycles, mopeds, bicycles), with pedestrians (13.8 percent) and lastly with other trucks (1.6 percent). The last case was also much more likely to lead to a death, however, with the percentage rising to 40 percent.

Another topic discussed at the meeting was the transport of hazardous substances - such as fuels, chemicals, toxic wastes or explosives- a cargo whose total worth is estimated at around 15 billion euros annually in Greece, while the annual turnover from its transportation is around 75 million euros. Human error and bad weather were to blame for most accidents where a hazardous substance was involved, while 18 percent of such accidents led to an explosion and 10 percent to large death counts (17 or more people).

Other speakers appealed for a shift toward bio-fuels and the use of natural gas by buses, taxis and school buses in a bid to clean up pollution in cities, where vehicle exhaust is estimated to account for 60 percent of pollution caused.

[02] Sarkozy and Royal pass on to 2nd round

Sarkozy, the candidate of the centre-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), and the Socialist Party's Royal will square off on May 6 to determine who will head the French state for the next five years.

Based on some 15 per cent of the votes cast, Sarkozy was credited with about 30 per cent of the vote and Royal picked up 25.2 per cent.

Centrist Francois Bayrou came in third, with an estimated 18.3 per cent, with right-wing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen finishing a distant fourth, at 11.5 per cent.

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