Vehicle safety trends in EU legislation: Making our roads safer for cyclists

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29 Oct, 2021

MEPs have signed off on a report that recommends more cycling in order to improve road safety by 2030. To follow up on this report, ECF has compiled a short revision of recent trends in EU road safety legislation, focusing on vehicle safety.

On 6 October 2021, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) voted to sign off on a report that set out their long-term vision for road safety in Europe. The report, which was proposed by rapporteur MEP Elena Kountoura, recommends that the European Commission expands upon cycling infrastructure implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic in member states, while also highlighting the importance of the link between sustainability and safety, including the need to shift to active modes of transport.

Several recommendations for optimising the safety of motor vehicles that share the roads with cyclists and pedestrians were also included in the report. As a follow up to this, the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) has compiled a review of what has been going on at the European Union (EU) level regarding vehicle safety and cycling over the past few years.

EU vehicle safety legislation

Vehicle safety regulations are dealt with almost exclusively in Brussels as part of regulating the safety of products (the vehicles) being brought onto the European single market. In December 2019, the European Parliament and Council published revisions to the General Safety Regulation, legislation which refers to vehicle technologies and safety measures that manufacturers must apply to their vehicles.

Traditionally, improvements have been technologies such as seatbelts, advanced braking and crumple zones, which have been very successful at saving the lives of vehicle occupants. But until recently, there have been few measures implemented for reducing fatalities of those outside of the vehicle.

The revisions made to the legislation in 2019 included some beneficial and interesting measures for cyclists and pedestrians. These included speed-reduction technologies, Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB), improved passive safety and safer truck technologies. However, the story did not finish there.

Secondary legislation outlining exactly how these measures must work for the testing authorities to pass or fail vehicles also had to be put in place. In essence, this secondary legislation defined what safety devices and technology would look like and, ultimately, their effectiveness.

ECF has been attending many of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) working groups and European Commission consultations that have been dealing with these measures, many of which are now coming to a conclusion (you can see the full list here). We have identified the following measures as being particularly relevant to the safety of cyclists.

Photo 1: Example of cars sharing space with cyclists (Source: Raysonho via Wikimedia Commons)

Intelligent Speed Assistance

From 2024, all new vehicles will need to have a form of Intelligence Speed Assistance (ISA) to assist the driver in keeping to the speed limit. However, there are good and bad parts to this legislation. The good part is that ISA systems must be more than just an interface on vehicle dashboards telling the driver their current speed and the respective speed limit. Instead, they are supposed to interact with the driver to assist them in keeping to the speed limit.

ISA systems must activate every time the vehicle starts up and technologies can include a vibration or pushback feature on the accelerator pedal whenever the vehicle goes over the speed limit. Another function is for ISA to actively reduce the speed through reducing the power to the engine. A visual warning of speed violation will always be present.

The bad part, however, is that after intense lobbying from the car industry, ISA systems can be turned off by the driver. Manufacturers can also choose a cascading auditory warning alarm as the onboard ISA system instead of the other direct interference with the vehicle speed. Needless to say, an annoying beeping alarm system that can be turned off will not make an effective ISA system, as previously stated by ECF here and eight of our ally organisations here and here.

Thankfully, a review of ISA will have to be undertaken by December 2025 to make sure these systems are being effective. ECF expects that the cascading auditory warning alarm will not be deemed effective, but it remains to be seen how the Commission will move forward on the issue.

Truck safety

Truck safety was also an important part of the legislation published in 2019, stating that manufacturers must place on each truck a Blind Spot Information System (BLIS) to warn of cyclists and a Moving Off Information System (MOIS) to warn the driver of pedestrians at the front of the truck during slow manoeuvres. These systems will be implemented in all new trucks also by 2024.

Also included in the General Safety Regulation was a requirement to improve the direct vision around the cabs of trucks by creating a Direct Vision Standard (DVS). Direct vision means the vision the diver has around the cab, not including mirrors or cameras. Mirrors and cameras are not always effective, and DVS will allow drivers to be able to see around their vehicle through the windscreen and side doors, especially trucks that are common in urban areas. Unfortunately, due to a great deal of lobbying by the industry, this improvement will only be mandatory for all new trucks by 2029.

Photo 2: New truck regulations will benefit safety of cyclists (Source: iStock)

Work on the secondary legislation for DVS is ongoing and the current – nearly finalised – text looks good. There will certainly be greatly improved vision for trucks that often enter cities and even improved vision (although to a lesser extent) for very large trucks that are less likely to enter urban areas.

But this does not mean we should become complacent in striving to remove large vehicles from cities or separate them from cyclists. Despite these improvements to trucks, they will still be high-risk vehicles for cyclists. We must continue to work to remove this risk from urban areas and manage our freight networks in a more sustainable and safer way.

These DVS regulatory improvements, along with changes to the Weights and Dimensions legislation which provides the maximum sizes for lorries, should see manufacturers introducing better design for truck cabs, such as lower cabs and more windows. Even before the legislation comes into force, we can already see some of the changes creeping in now, including some longer distance trucks that are currently being designed.

Here is an interesting video introducing a new truck onto the market (skip to 3:30 for the interesting details). But remember while watching that the vehicle industry was often dragged kicking and screaming by regulators through these procedures to have safety improvements included! Nevertheless, thanks to regulators there will undoubtably be safety improvements, especially for those outside the vehicles.

For the full list of all the vehicle safety improvements and additions that will become mandatory over the next two to seven years, click here.