News
The new EU coordinator for road safety, Kristian Schmidt, told MEPs earlier this week that discussions are going on within the European Commission on the establishment of an EU road safety agency, and that the idea is ‘gaining ground’. The European Parliament echoed ETSC by calling last year for the setting up of a road safety agency, in recognition of the need for better coordination of road safety issues in […]
The European Transport Safety Council is calling for renewed action and specific targets to protect child road users as its latest report showed that more than 6000 children up to the age of 14 died between 2011 and 2020 in road collisions in the European Union. Among some 40 recommendations to national governments and the EU, ETSC is calling for safe cycling and walking routes to schools. Just seven countries […]
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is calling for alcohol impairment detection systems to be included in all new vehicles, according to new recommendations released earlier this month. NTSB is recommending the installation of in-vehicle technologies that can limit or prohibit impaired drivers from operating their vehicles as well as technologies to prevent speeding including: Requiring passive vehicle-integrated alcohol impairment detection systems, advanced driver monitoring systems or a combination […]
UK drivers have serious concerns about the Government’s plans to change compulsory technical inspections, known as the ‘MOT’, from every year to every two years to reduce the cost of living, with many believing it will lead to a rise in the number of unsafe vehicles on the road. More than half (55%) of the 1,435 drivers surveyed by the RAC, a motoring organisation, said they felt changing the MOT […]
Norway, the country with Europe’s safest roads, has set out its plans for cutting road deaths in half by 2030, at the same time as setting a formal target of zero deaths by 2050 for the first time. This goes a step beyond its existing ‘Vision Zero’ strategic approach, first adopted in 2001. The Norwegian government’s latest four-year road safety strategy, covering the period 2022-2025 includes 179 specific measures, each […]
The Swiss branch of AXA, an insurer, says its data show electric vehicles crash 50% more often than conventionally-powered cars. The company says the reason for this is likely to be the higher acceleration of, in particular, the more powerful electric cars. The underlying data have not been published. AXA’s German branch said, in a separate news release, that its data from the German market did not lead to the […]
According to preliminary results from the German Federal Statistics Office for January to June 2022, a total of 1,238 people were killed and 163,800 injured in road collisions in Germany. The TÜV Association, an ETSC member, has warned that new measures will be needed to prevent road traffic deaths returning to pre-pandemic levels. Marc-Philipp Waschke, road safety officer at the TÜV Association, said: “Historically low crash figures were one of […]
Antonio Avenoso, Executive Director Last month NHTSA, a US government agency, released its first set of data on crashes involving vehicles with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). In the ten months since mandatory reporting began, there have been around 400 reported incidents. How about in Europe, a market comparable in size? Nobody knows. There is no equivalent to NHTSA that covers the whole of the EU. A car approved in […]
ETSC has published a new briefing on the revision of the EU driving licence directive. The directive is currently under review with a proposal from the European Commission expected later this year under the Czech Presidency of the EU which runs from July to December. ETSC is calling for the Commission to maintain existing age requirements for driving licences and not to lower them for any vehicle category. ETSC would […]
ETSC’s Czech member CDV has launched an index of road safety in major cities in the Czech Republic, in association with Generali, an insurer. The online database includes information on 13 major cities and 206 municipalities across the country and enables users to rank based on a safety index. The index value is calculated based on the ratio of serious and fatal collisions to the total number of collisions. A […]
The UK government has announced the forthcoming creation of an independent organisation that will investigate road crashes and make recommendations to government on road safety policy. The “Road Safety Investigation Branch (RSIB)” will recruit a specialist team of crash investigators that will look at why incidents happen and “provide insight into how new technologies…can be rolled out.” New legislation is required for the new agency to go ahead, and this […]
New models of car, van, lorry and bus launched on to the EU/EEA market from tomorrow (6 July) must be fitted as standard with an array of new vehicle safety technologies. The European Transport Safety Council welcomes this milestone but says standards for two of the new technologies are too weak and need to be urgently reviewed. In particular, ETSC says that the minimum standards for Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) […]
A clear majority of German citizens are in favour of a total ban on alcohol at the wheel. In a representative survey of 1,000 people aged 16 and over for the latest TÜV Mobility report, four out of five German citizens were in favour of a general ban on alcohol. “Alcohol massively impairs the coordination, reaction and decision-making abilities of drivers,” said Marc-Philipp Waschke, Road Safety Officer at the TÜV […]
The Spanish government has published its long-term goals for road safety improvements in a comprehensive strategy that encompasses the Safe System approach and is in line with EU and global targets. The new document begins with a look back at the progress made during the decade covered by its previous road safety strategy acknowledging both successes, such as a reduction in deaths among young drivers on the weekend, as well […]
A court in Frankfurt has imposed a higher fine than normal on an SUV-driver for jumping a red light, with the justification that pedestrians using the intersection were at a greater risk from the vehicle. The “box-like design and increased front end due to the greater ground clearance” led to a higher risk of injuring other road users, the court said. The standard rate for the fine was 200 euros, […]
Lithuania is the winner of this year’s European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) Award, in recognition of major improvements in road safety over the last decade. Out of the European countries tracked by ETSC, Lithuania was the only EU country to halve road deaths between 2011 and 2021. Among non-EU European countries, only Norway did better with a reduction of 52%. The ETSC panel of experts […]
By Graziella Jost This summer, new models of car, van, bus and lorry that come on to the EU market must be fitted, as standard, with a range of new safety technologies. But Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA), one of the most promising of these new features in terms of road safety, could fail to bring the hoped-for benefits. What happened? ISA, as it was originally envisaged, is a fantastic life-saving […]
The French interior ministry is apparently considering relaxing speed sanctions to only apply the penalty point system for speeding in excess of 5 km/h over the posted speed limit, according to an unnamed source quoted by the AFP news agency. Today, anyone going above the speed limit can be fined and have points removed from their license. The fines and amount of penalty points is linked to the level of […]
Two new models from Mercedes-Benz have gone on sale in Germany with an automated system capable of taking complete control of the vehicle away from the driver under certain circumstances. ETSC says more oversight is needed of such systems, together with a commitment to an in-depth crash investigation for every collision involving a vehicle with self-driving features. ETSC has repeatedly called for the setting up of an EU road collision […]
The French government will be obliged to introduce periodic technical inspections for motorcycles from October following a decision by the country’s supreme court. The government announced and then abruptly withdrew rules on motorcycle technical inspections in October last year, following pressure from motorcycle owners’ groups. But that decision has now been overturned by the Conseil d’État. An EU law on roadworthiness, agreed back in 2013, gave Member States an exceptionally long lead time of nine […]