ECF welcomes a European Parliament report[1] voted in plenary today that calls on the European Commission to make ground-breaking safety technologies compulsory in all new vehicles. This has been and continues to be a focus of ECF road safety advocacy because vehicle regulation is a major EU competence.[2]

The Parliament report calls for:

• Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) that intervenes to aid the driver to keep the speed of the car to speed limits
• Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) for all motorised vehicles that stops the vehicle hitting cyclists and pedestrians
• A Direct vison standard applied to trucks, as well as ISA and AEB in all truck
• To update the testing requirements for motor vehicle passive safety systems to further include cyclist impacts

The report also has many more safety demands such as calling on Member States to build and maintain more cycling and pedestrian infrastructure, and to improve current infrastructure.

The European Parliament report was responding to a report by the European Commission, “Saving Lives: Boosting Car Safety in the EU[3]” setting out options on a review of the vehicle type approval safety legislation which should start next spring, and which will then be subject to approval or amendment by the Parliament and Member States.  The current type approval rules that manufacturers must follow with regards to fitting safety designs and technologies dates back to 2009[4] and much technology has moved on since then particularly in the field of vehicle safety. Those plans would then need to be approved by EU member states and the Parliament

In March of this year European transport ministers signed the Valletta Declaration in Malta also calling for the Commission to ensure deployment of new safety features for vehicles and called on the development of safety designs “such as advanced Intelligent Speed Assistance or Autonomous Emergency Braking, protecting in particular vulnerable road users”. This means Member States and now Parliament have now called for the deployment of vehicle safety technologies.

ECF road safety policy officer Ceri Woolsgrove said:

“ECF has lobbied  consistently to have the current crop of safety technologies put into motor vehicles. We are seeing a revolution in the design and technological capabilities of vehicles to greatly improve the safety of those outside as well as inside the vehicle. The European Commission now has a clear mandate from Parliament and transport Ministers to be ambitious in the upcoming proposal for the review of the General Safety Regulations next year.”

MEPs responsible for this forward thinking, comprehensive report were rapporteur MEP Dieter-Lebrecht Koch and shadow rapporteurs MEPs Michael Cramer, Olga Sehnalova, Kosma Zlotowski, Jens Rohde, Katerina Konecna, and Rolandas Paksas[5].

[1] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P8-TA-2017-0423+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN