Publications
Since the last ETSC PIN report looking at the safety of goods and passenger transport was published in 2013, the transport sector has continued to evolve. Just-in-time delivery in many industries; next-day delivery of single items from online shops; clothes bought, tried on and then returned; supermarket home delivery – in the background of all these services is an international network of transport that ends with goods vehicles crisscrossing countries, cities and towns. This report looks at the toll transport of goods and services […]
A letter from ETSC to European Commission for Transport Adina-Ioana Vălean on prioritising transport safety during and after the COVID-19 crisis. Download the letter.
Speed is a major factor in overall road safety performance. Excessive and inappropriate speed is accountable for about one third of fatal collisions and is an aggravating factor in most collisions. 2,100 lives could be saved each year if the average speed dropped by only 1 km/h on all roads across the EU. Speeding on different types of road In the EU, 37% of all road deaths occur on urban roads. Among the countries that monitor levels of speed compliance on urban roads countrywide, […]
Letter: ACEA’s attempts to weaken the European Commission’s proposals on new vehicle safety measures
A group of safety experts, consumer groups, transport police, environmental campaigners, city authorities, cyclists and road collision victims have written today to members of the European Parliament’s Committees on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) and Transport (TRAN) to raise concerns over the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA)’s attempts to weaken the European Commission’s proposals on new vehicle safety measures and to ask MEPs to pass the legislation as soon as possible, to maximise its life-saving potential. Download the full letter (pdf) For more […]
In this briefing, ETSC makes the case for supporting the redesign of the front end of HGVs to reduce the current risks to both car occupants and vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists (VRUs). A change in design could have a significant impact on the number of deaths and serious injuries involved in collisions with HGVs.
Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) is the term given to a range of devices that assist drivers in choosing appropriate speeds and complying with speed limits. Intelligent Speed Assistance technologies bring speed limit information into the vehicle. Drivers receive the same information that they see (or sometimes miss seeing) on traffic signs through an onboard communication system, helping them to keep track of the legal speed limit all along their journey. Information regarding the speed limit for a given location is usually identified from an […]
The European Commission has proposed a revision of Directive 96/53/EC which prescribes the maximum permitted weights and dimensions for vehicles using the road networks in the European Union. The proposal will grant derogations from the maximum dimensions of vehicles for the addition of aerodynamic devices to the rear of vehicles and give the possibility to redefine the geometry of the cabs for tractors. The derogations must meet certain requirements, one of which is not to increase the load capacity of vehicles. The requirements will […]
Regaining pace: road deaths down by 9% in 2012 A total of 27,700 people were killed in the EU27 as a consequence of road collisions. Around 313,000 were recorded as seriously injured and many more suffered slight injuries. Following disappointing results from 2011, the year 2012 brings a welcome contrast as 27 out the 31 countries monitored by the PIN Programme registered a drop in the number of road deaths. Frontrunners are Malta and Cyprus followed by Israel and Denmark. But road deaths increased […]
In the European Union 4,254 people lost their lives in collisions involving heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) in 2011, 3,999 in collisions involving light goods vehicles (LGVs) – goods vehicles with a maximum permitted weight below 3.5 tonnes – and 722 in collisions involving a bus, coach or trolleybus, totalling 29% of the overall number of road deaths recorded in 2011. Since 2001, for the EU as a whole, deaths in collisions involving an HGV and in collisions involving a bus or coach were reduced […]
The role of driver fatigue in driving safety is a complex one, especially within commercial road transport, which is the focus of this review. The core issue is one of working time and the opportunity this offers for rest and recuperation from work, together with the possibility of presenting for work unimpaired by fatigue and loss of sleep. However, powerful economic and social forces influence and control the normative pattern of work of commercial drivers. Working time is, after all, one of the basic […]
Road crashes continue to be the main source of accidental death and injury in the European Union (EU) and throughout the world. Each year in EU countries over 42,000 road users are killed and, when under-reporting is taken into consideration, around 3.5 million are injured. This accounts for an annual cost of over 160 billion Euro and untold pain and suffering. Improvements throughout the traffic system using all the known strategies from crash prevention through to injury reduction and post impact care are needed to respond to the growing […]