ECF co-signs letter with another 12 organisations calling on MEPs to be bold in voting for a raft of vehicle safety technologies and measures. The IMCO committee in the European Parliament will vote on a final text on how to legislate for safer vehicles in a couple of weeks (21-22 Feb). The letter can be viewed here and is signed by road safety NGO’s, user organisations, standards organisations, Police officers network, cities networks and environmental group.

Measures include Intelligent Speed Assistance ISA; Automatic Emergency Braking AEB (also for pedestrians and cyclists); better Direct Vision for trucks; turning assist for trucks; better passive safety for car front design; and many others. If the proposal goes through in its current form it could save over 25,000 lives over a 13 year period according to TRL.

What sets this regulation apart from those that have gone before is that there are technologies that will have a specific beneficial effect also on cyclist and pedestrian safety. The measures also come as a system that each enhance the other. ISA keeps the vehicle within braking distance, AEB technologies warns and stops the vehicle if a crash is imminent, and the improved passive safety of bonnet/windscreen design mitigates injury if a crash does occur.

At the heart of this ‘system’ is the Intelligent Speed Assistance. It is a warning and intervening system in the vehicle that will provide haptic feedback to the driver through the accelerator control when the vehicle goes over the limit and assist to slow down. It can be overridden by the driver if he/she deems it necessary by further compression on the accelerator. The vehicle reads speed limit signs (95% of roads are accurately understood by the sensing equipment across the EU), or/and by GPS speed limit mapping.

The European Commission excellent proposal[1] put forward this type of an ISA system and MEP Rosa Thun’s draft report[2] for the parliament agreed, however as the letter points out the car industry is lobbying aggressively to insist MEPs amend the final report, throw out ISA, and only have a simple warning light (Speed Limit Information SLI) on the dash board (this has been reported also elsewhere[3]). It is crucial that we keep an intervening system that assists the driver in maintaining the speed limit – the estimated difference between ISA and SLI is about 1300 deaths on the road every year!

The letter also calls for MEPs to support safer lorries, in particular to legislate for better direct vision. We have been calling for this for a while now to get a mandatory standard laying out what drivers see directly out the window of their cab, and it looks very likely that this will be included in the legislation no matter what happens; the big problem is the timeframe currently we are looking at 10 - 11 years before these trucks are mandated. This needs to be put in place as early as possible. There is also importantly a cyclist and pedestrian detection system for trucks to detect at the front and nearside, crucial for the classic deadly right turn lorry crash with cyclists.

Countries and cities across the EU have been calling for safer lorries for cyclists and pedestrians. London has its safer HGV scheme with better visibility for trucks[4]; there is growing pressure for turning assists in Austria after horrific crashes in Vienna[5]; and The German Federal Council last year put forward compulsory introduction of turning assists for HGVs (retrofitting for current trucks) after a series of fatal crashes[6]. It is important that the EU does not get behind the curve on this. Cities networks are threatening to take matters into their own hands[7] and follow London’s example of banning unsafe trucks in the city. However, only the EU has the mandate for regulating new vehicles across the EU. And away from all the technical negotiations, here and here are the reasons why large vehicles need to be made fit for purpose in urban areas, two campaigns that have been working tirelessly for truck safety for years and that show the need to make this a priority. The only motor vehicles on the road without vision standards are the largest; how crazy is that! It needs to be remedied ASAP.

The letter also calls on MEPs to include motor car AEB for cyclists/pedestrians; Alocolock fitment infrastructure; distraction recognition; Event Data Recorders; and more. You can find the original Commission proposal[8], and MEP Róża Thun’s draft report[9] in the footnotes below.

If you think ISA and safe lorry measures are worth fighting for you can contact your MEP in your country and send them a mail telling them to keep an intervening ISA in the legislation, and provide for safer lorry measures, all details are here: https://ecf.com/what-we-do/road-safety/motor-vehicle-regulation-safer-cycling

[1] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/docs_autres_institutions/commission_europeenne/com/2018/0286/COM_COM(2018)0286_EN.pdf 

[2] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=COMPARL&mode=XML&language=EN&reference=PE629.496  

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/dec/13/car-lobby-opposes-eu-safety-bid-that-would-save-1300-lives-a-year?CMP=twt_gu   

[4] https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/deliveries-in-london/delivering-safely  

[5] https://derstandard.at/2000097797455/SPOe-will-gemeinsamen-Beschluss-fuer-verpflichtende-Lkw-Abbiegeassistenten?fbclid=IwAR1dkMWJXF2qbNYaKTgl758PHgRB-969oKIbmCDa9oEdoaWx4ZuAMM3-aBc

[6] https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/abbiege-assistent-101.html

[7] https://twitter.com/POLISnetwork/status/1067069335347388416 

[8] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/docs_autres_institutions/commission_europeenne/com/2018/0286/COM_COM(2018)0286_EN.pdf

[9] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=COMPARL&mode=XML&language=EN&reference=PE629.496