News - Page 4
The South Korean transport ministry has announced that it will require all new large passenger vehicles and trucks to be fitted with Automated Emergency Braking (AEB) and Lane Departure Warning (LDW) systems from January 2019. Meanwhile an expected announcement of new EU vehicle legislation mandating these and other technologies for new cars has been delayed until May. EU vehicle safety standards have not been updated since 2009, and while its 19 proposed measures are more comprehensive than any other region’s current plans, further delays […]
EU Member States have approved an exemption to EU vehicle type approval rules for a new automated lane change system, despite safety concerns being raised. No details of the system have been made public including the name of the make and model of vehicle the system will be fitted to. In a behind-closed-doors meeting in December of the “Technical Committee – Motor Vehicles” (TCMV) EU Member State representatives approved a European Commission decision to grant the German government permission to certify EU-wide a new […]
The Fiat Punto is the first car ever to be awarded a zero star rating by Euro NCAP, the consumer testing organisation, in a development that highlights the risks of the EU failing to update minimum vehicle safety standards for almost a decade. Euro NCAP regularly updates the criteria for its star rating scheme, and retests cars to ensure safety levels are maintained in light of technological improvements. The minimum legal requirements for the EU market however were last updated in 2009 meaning it […]
The European Commission’s working group on Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (the C-ITS platform) has published its Phase II Final Report, which includes a number of recommendations for prioritising road safety. C-ITS encompasses sharing of data from transport infrastructure to vehicles, and from vehicle to vehicle. The technology can support drivers but will also develop as a complement to automated and autonomous vehicles. The platform’s road safety working group, of which ETSC was a participant, set out a list of priority C-ITS services with higher […]
Euro NCAP has announced plans setting out how the consumer safety testing programme will evolve and respond to new vehicle safety technologies in the near future. The organisation says it will challenge vehicle manufacturers to offer the best possible technology as standard in all segments and countries, protecting not only car occupants of all ages but also increasingly addressing the safety of other more vulnerable road users. The roadmap outlines a timeline for the introduction of key testing enhancements, including: Primary safety Driver Monitoring […]
The European Parliament says all new cars sold in Europe should be fitted as standard with a range of life-saving technologies including automated emergency braking, intelligent speed assistance and seatbelt reminders in all seats. Safety campaigners say the technologies could be as important as the seat belt, but action is needed now because it will take years before the majority of cars on the roads have the technology. Some 26,000 people died on EU roads last year, a figure that has hardly changed in […]
The Australasian New Car Assessment Programme (ANCAP) will start to award additional safety points for cars fitted with Speed Assistance Systems (SAS) from next year and Euro NCAP will start to require regular digital map updates in the near future to improve reliability of the systems over time. Euro NCAP has been awarding safety points to carmakers for installation of Speed Assistance Systems since 2013. Several car manufacturers now offer cars fitted with Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) systems, the version of the technology preferred by ETSC. Overiddable ISA, which ETSC would like to see made mandatory […]
The European Parliament’s Transport Committee has called for new cars to be fitted as standard with a range of life-saving technologies including automated emergency braking, intelligent speed assistance and intelligent seatbelt reminders in all seats. In a non-binding resolution responding to a report by the European Commission, “Saving Lives: Boosting Car Safety in the EU”, adopted today in Brussels, the committee said “more effective measures” are needed, in order to reach a goal of “no fatalities”. Mandatory safety standards for new cars sold on the European […]
A coalition of industry, NGOs, consumer groups and cities are calling on the European Commission to urgently bring forward new minimum safety standards for new cars, vans and trucks, after years of delays. The European Commission is expected to announce a new package of transport legislation next week, the groups are calling for an announcement on updates to vehicle safety regulations to be included. The letter from groups including the European Association of Automotive Suppliers (CLEPA), the European Cyclists Federation (ECF), POLIS, the European […]
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 […]