(BRUSSELS) - European Commission officials proposed new measures Wednesday to punish drivers who commit traffic offences in another member state.

Speeding, drink-driving, failing to wear a seat belt and jumping red lights were the main factors in the annual European road death toll of 43,000 last year, said the EU's executive arm.

At least one of these four offences was an element in nearly 75 percent of all road deaths, said the Commission.

But non-resident drivers were rarely punished for the offences, said Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot, presenting the proposals.

"The impunity of these non-resident drivers creates a feeling of injustice," among residents who would get punished for committing the same offence, he added.

"In 2001 we set ourselves the goal of reducing by half the number of deaths on our roads over a ten-year period," said Barrot. "If we are to reach this target, we need to make additional efforts now."

The death toll on the roads in 2001 stood at 54,000.

"Adopting an effective system of cross-border prosecution of traffic offences should help to make an appreciable reduction in the current number of people killed in road accidents," said a Commission statement.

Non-resident drivers needed to be targetted because they accounted for a disproportionate amount of offences.

Although they made up about five percent of road traffic in the EU they were responsible for an average of 15 percent of speeding offences in the zone.

EU officials would use technology to identify offenders and legal measures to prosecute them -- even if they had committed their offence abroad, said the statement.

Once the rules were adopted for example, if French radar caught a British vehicle speeding, the authorities in France could apply to their British British counterparts for the offender's address and fine him.

But the new rules would not include docking penalty points or withdrawing driving licences.

There is already agreement that one EU nation may prosecute a miscreant for a road offence committed in another member state.

So far however, only seven of the 27 EU nations -- Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, the Netherlands and Romania have brought in the necessary national legislation for this agreement to take effect.

While the death toll on Europe's roads had fallen from 54,000 in 2001 to 43,000 last year, 2007 was the first year of the initiative in which the death toll remained stable.

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