Vienna Convention on Road Traffic Law and Legal Definition
The Vienna Convention on Road Traffic is an international agreement designed to facilitate international road traffic. The convention covers road traffic safety regulations and establishes principles to govern traffic laws. It increases road safety by standardizing the uniform traffic rules among the contracting parties.
This convention was agreed upon at the United Nations Economic and Social Council's Conference on Road Traffic and signed in Vienna on November 8, 1968. The convention came into force on 21 May 1977. The conference also produced the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals.
The Vienna Convention on Road Traffic was not ratified by all signatory parties. Notable cases of countries that refused or delayed ratification include Chile, Republic of Ireland, Republic of China (Taiwan), Israel, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Ghana, Holy See, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom, and Venezuela.
One of the basic principles of the convention has been the concept that a driver is always fully in control and responsible for the behavior of a vehicle in traffic. With the advent of automatic systems to direct the behavior of various vehicle systems such as lighting, but increasingly towards collision avoidance, this basic principle is no longer completely in concert with advanced vehicle technologies.
