The SAFESPOT European Integrated Project is co-funded by the European Commission Information Society Technologies and started its activities on the design and development of cooperative systems for road safety in February 2006. The project, promoted by EUCAR (the research association of the Car Manufacturers), will last four years, it is coordinated by Centro Ricerche Fiat, it includes 51 partners from 12 different European countries (Italy, Germany, France, UK, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland, Belgium, Greece, Poland, Hungary) among car makers, suppliers, road operators, service providers and research centers. The main aim of the project is to understand and assess, through tests in real conditions, the potential of a cooperative approach in terms of road transport safety improvement. This paper is an overall description of the project aims and objectives and reports the basic results of the first phase of the SAFESPOT project activities, namely the definition of the relevant use cases, scenarios of applications and requirements.