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Ministers of transport from the 28 EU countries have backed a range of measures to reduce deaths and serious injuries linked to speeding in a declaration issued at an informal meeting in Malta in March. In the ‘Valetta Declaration on Road Safety’, ministers undertake to “expand and integrate reduced speed limits such as 30km/h, into high risk areas” and call on the European Commission to accelerate work on new vehicle safety requirements which were last updated in 2009. The declaration also calls for technologies […]
By Antonio Avenoso, ETSC Executive Director It’s done. A defining moment in the history of the European Union took place earlier this month. No, not the UK’s Article 50 letter, nor Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the first round of the French presidential election. On 25 April, EU member states approved a final deal to end mobile phone roaming charges from June this year. Could this small victory for consumers signal the start of a new chapter for the EU? So often seen as technocratic […]
A third of road deaths in the EU happen in collisions that involve a single motorised vehicle where the driver/rider and/or passengers are killed but no other road users are involved. These Single Vehicle Collisions (SVCs), and how to prevent them occurring, are the subject of a new report from ETSC, published today. Nearly 7300 road users lost their lives in 2015 in SVCs in the EU with around 100,000 such deaths occurring over the last ten years according to the data revealed in […]
Valletta – The European Commission has published new data showing that deaths on EU roads fell by just 2% last year, following a 1% increase in 2015. According to ETSC analysis, road deaths will now need to fall by 11.5% a year in order to meet the EU target of cutting deaths by half in the decade to 2020. Commenting on the publication of the latest figures, Antonio Avenoso, Executive Director of the European Transport Safety Council said: “With around 500 deaths on EU […]
By Antonio Avenoso, ETSC Executive Director After the political turmoil of recent months, 2009, the year of Barack Obama’s inauguration, seems like another age. Back then only a handful of people had heard of Uber, Tesla’s plan for an ‘Autopilot’ feature or Google’s self-driving car project. Technological change, particularly in the car industry, has continued at a dizzying pace since then. But somehow, the European Commission didn’t get the memo. 2009 was also, believe it or not, the year of the last major revision […]
Eight EU transport ministers have called on the European Commission to ‘speed up’ plans to upgrade vehicle safety standards saying road safety should be ‘top priority’. In a letter to the European Commissioner for industry Elżbieta Bieńkowska, the transport ministers of Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg and The Netherlands said ‘ambitious’ new vehicle safety standards are needed ‘to help Member States halve the number of road deaths by 2020’. 26,000 people die on European Union roads annually, with at least 135,000 suffering life-changing […]
The director of the Dutch Institute for Road Safety Research (SWOV) says the government needs to look at speed limits, increase the number of roads with separate cycle lanes and revise environmental taxes that failed to promote safer vehicles. While the Netherlands has been a leader in road safety in Europe, recent years have seen stagnation and an increase in the number of deaths. In an interview with the AD newspaper, Dr Peter van der Knaap pointed to ETSC research published last year that […]
The European Commission has published a list of 19 lifesaving safety technologies that could be made mandatory on new vehicles in the next update of EU vehicle safety rules expected next year. The European Transport Safety Council welcomes the announcement but says several critical areas for action are missing, and the proposed timescale is far too long considering that most of the technologies are already available today. 26,000 people die on European Union roads annually, with at least 135,000 suffering life-changing injuries. Progress on […]
In a move designed to boost the safety of cyclists and pedestrians, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has announced a new star rating scheme for lorries that could see vehicles with severe blind spots refused access to the city centre. The proposals state that the most dangerous, zero star-rated ‘off-road’ HGVs will be banned from London’s streets entirely by January 2020, and only HGVs meeting the new London Direct Vision Standard of 3 stars or above will be allowed by 2024. Lorries will […]
The German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt has written to Tesla calling on the company to stop using the ‘misleading’ term ‘Autopilot’ in its advertising. According to Reuters, the letter was sent last month and was followed by a letter from the KBA – The German Federal Motor Transport Authority – to all Tesla owners warning that their cars could not be operated without their ‘constant attention’. Tesla has apparently rejected the request to change the name of its system – the German version of […]
Several new car models launched in recent months come with speed limit information systems fitted as standard, but more needs to be done to encourage installation of full Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) which actively helps prevent the driver from speeding, according to ETSC. Both Ford and Volvo launched full ISA systems last year that automatically limit the speed to the local limit using speed sign recognition and GPS data. Ford’s Galaxy and S-Max and Volvo’s XC90 offer the system as standard. But according to […]
New research by Admiral, a British insurer, based on data from some 300,000 event data recorders (EDRs) has revealed differences in the likelihood of speeding between drivers of different brands of car. BMW and Audi models featured prominently high up on the list of speeders, while at the other end of the spectrum, Skoda cars were found most frequently in the bottom 10%. Several UK insurers offer a discount to drivers who are willing to have an EDR fitted in their car. Drivers can […]
Preliminary data released last month by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) show a 7.7 percent increase in motor vehicle traffic deaths in 2015. An estimated 35,200 people died in 2015, up from the 32,675 reported deaths in 2014. The NHTSA estimate shows 9 out of 10 regions within the United States had increased traffic deaths in 2015. The most significant increases came for pedestrians and bicyclists. “As the economy has improved and (fuel) prices have fallen, more Americans are driving more […]
In a referendum held on 23 June, a majority of citizens of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. The decision, if carried through with the commencement of the Article 50 procedure of the treaty of the EU, may have far-reaching consequences for the areas of policy covered by European Union law, including transport safety. There is currently a great deal of uncertainty about the kind of relationship the UK will have with the remaining member states, and the legal framework that […]
The latest Indian crash test results from Global NCAP released in May continue to disappoint. All five models were rated as zero star. The Renault Kwid, Maruti Suzuki Celerio, Maruti Suzuki Eeco, Mahindra Scorpio and Hyundai Eon all showed low levels of adult occupant protection. The Renault Kwid was tested in three versions, including one with airbags, but each was rated as zero star for adult safety. Commenting on the latest crash test results, David Ward, Secretary General of Global NCAP said: “The latest […]
India will require new motorcycles to be fitted with headlights that switch on automatically from next year in a bid to improve the visibility and safety of motorcyclists. From April 2017, powered two wheelers will need to automatically switch on the headlight when the ignition switch is turned on. The measure may actually save money once implemented because it effectively removes the need for an on/off switch for the headlights. In Europe, daytime running lights or auto-on headlights are already required on new motorcycles […]
The introduction of telematics systems in the vehicle fleet of Andrew Page, a distribution company with 900 vehicles, reduced speeding by 97% and crashes by 47% as well as reducing maintenance costs and improving fuel economy according to a report in the Financial Times newspaper. Take-up of telematics systems is increasing, with industry experts expecting them to be integral in all fleets within five and seven years’ time. Resistance amongst drivers may also be decreasing, according to the FT. It cited a 2015 survey […]
Ford says 95% of customers are opting for its version of Intelligent Speed Assistance, known as Intelligent Speed Limiter, to be fitted on new Galaxy and S-Max models sold in Europe. The announcement was made at an ETSC event organised together with the Irish Road Safety Authority (RSA) in Dublin in April. Ford says the technology will soon be available on a third model, the Edge four-wheel drive. A new report from the RSA launched at the conference revealed that between 2008 and 2012, […]
EU rules on safety approvals for new cars will need to be revised to include ‘driving tests’ for automated and fully-autonomous vehicles according to a new report from the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC). ETSC says the EU is far from answering the many research and regulatory questions that must be considered before automated and autonomous vehicles can be put on sale. The report says the priority must be ensuring that the promised safety benefits are delivered in real world driving. One challenge will […]
Antonio Avenoso, Executive Director There was no email version, not even an email address to write to or website to check for updates. None of the articles were tweeted or shared on facebook as Mark Zuckerberg was only ten years old. Google was not yet a verb. Browsing through the first edition of ETSC’s Safety Monitor newsletter this week felt like examining a document from another age. It was published in December 1994, around eighteen months after ETSC was founded ‘in response to the […]