Cars
Driving while talking on a hands-free phone can be as distracting as talking on a hand-held mobile, psychologists at the University of Sussex say. The study, published in the Transportation Research journal, found that drivers having conversations which sparked their visual imagination detected fewer road hazards than those who didn’t. They also focused on a smaller area of the road ahead of them and failed to see hazards, even when they looked directly at them. This shows the risks of even hands-free phone conversations. […]
The European Transport Safety Council welcomes the final political agreement between the European Parliament and EU member states on mandatory installation of ‘eCall’, a system for sending automated emergency calls from cars in the event of a crash. The deal requires new models of car launched in the EU from 31 March 2018 to be fitted with the system. Separate legislation, already agreed by the European institutions requires member states to put in place the infrastructure to handle eCalls. Antonio Avenoso, Executive Director of […]
ETSC is calling for Automated Emergency Braking systems to be fitted as standard on new cars in the EU. The technology, which is already available as an optional extra even on low-cost vehicles, has been described by one leading UK vehicle safety expert as potentially ‘as important a breakthrough as the seatbelt’. Peter Shaw, chief executive of Thatcham Research, the UK insurance industry’s research centre, made the comments to What Car? Magazine, while also calling for government subsidies for buyers who opt for an […]
In June each year, ETSC organises the PIN Conference to publicise the results of the ETSC PIN Annual Report and present the PIN Award to a high-level policymaker responsible for the country’s outstanding progress in road safety. This year’s conference was held at Norway House, Brussels, kindly hosted by the Norwegian Mission to the European Union. Download the agenda. Presentations Antonio Avenoso, ETSC – Road Safety Performance Index PIN Award 2014 Guro Ranes, Norwegian Public Roads Administration – The Norwegian National Plan of Action […]
Four car-like vehicles classed as ‘quadricycles’ have performed poorly in tests carried out by the vehicle safety organisation EuroNCAP with some showing serious risks of life threatening injuries. Quadricycles are a new class of sub-compact vehicle that has emerged in Europe in recent years. Although street-legal, quadricycles do not have to pass any of the rigorous crash tests to which cars are subjected. The tested models were the Club Car Villager 2+2 LSV, the Renault Twizy 80, the Tazzari ZERO and the Ligier IXO […]
Around 240,000 car occupants were killed in road collisions in the EU in the years 2001-2012. There were 12,345 deaths in 2012 compared with 27,700 in 2001 (1), a cut of 55%. Deaths of car occupants were cut by more than the overall death rate (49%) and substantially more than the rate for other road users (41%). Car occupants have therefore benefitted more than other road users from road safety measures adopted over the past decade. This is not surprising, as many of those […]
Seat-belt reminder alerts in all car seats could save 900 lives a year Spain and Latvia make biggest progress in cutting car deaths Transport safety campaigners are calling on the European Union to accelerate progress on reducing the number of people killed in cars every year in the EU, as new research shows 12,345 car occupants were fatally injured in 2012. The report into trends in car occupant safety, published today by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), found that 900 lives could be […]
The European Parliament has backed EU plans for all new types of car and van to be fitted with automated emergency call devices (eCall). However, the Parliament backed away from a 2015 deadline for the introduction of the technology, pending discussions with EU member states. Antonio Avenoso, Executive Director of the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) said: “This technology is all about saving lives by saving time. So politicians should waste no more precious months getting this system in place: the deadline of the […]
The European Parliament’s internal market committee has backed EU plans for all new types of car and van to be fitted with automated emergency call devices but opened the door to postponing their introduction beyond the proposed deadline of October 2015. Today’s vote on ‘eCall’ gives a green light for a pan-European ‘type approval’ method to ensure the devices meet the necessary technical standards. The decision follows a vote in December in the transport committee to approve legislation for member states to develop the […]
EU plans for all new cars to be fitted with automated emergency call devices (eCall) moved a step closer today following a vote in the European Parliament’s Transport committee. ETSC welcomed the move. Antonio Avenoso, Executive Director of ETSC said: “After a serious car crash, every second counts. This system has the potential to save many lives because it will enable the emergency services to respond quicker. “The European Parliament has been a strong supporter of eCall, it’s important that Parliament negotiators continue to […]
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 launched further proposals to prepare the way for the introduction of emergency call (eCall) to improve road safety. On the 13th of June, the European Commission proposed a Regulation requestig that all new types of vehicles in categories M1 and N1 entering the EU market after the 1st of October 2015 have an in-vehicle eCall system. On the same date, the European Commission adopted Decision 2013/0166 that will require EU Member States to deploy the necessary eCall Public Service Answering […]
ETSC’s contribution on road safety to the CARS 2020 programme of the European Commission.
The European Commission has launched proposals to revise the roadworthiness legislation as part of a new initiative to improve road safety. The first instrument is a revision of the 2009/40/EC Periodic Roadworthiness Directive. The second covers the revision of Directive 2000/30/EC on technical roadside inspections of commercial vehicles. The final Directive to be revised is 1999/37/EC on the requirements for issuing registration certificates. The Directive on Periodic Roadworthiness tests was recast in 2009 but the body of the text has not seen any major […]
ETSC’s contribution on road safety to the CARS 21 programme of the European Commission.
Executive Summary Transport crashes in the EU killed about 39,200 EU citizens in 2001, cause over 3.3 million casualties and presently cost over 180 billion Euros, around twice the total EU budget for all activity. Nowadays road crashes in the EU lead to 97% of all transport deaths and to more than 93% of all transport crash costs and are the leading cause of death and hospital admission for citizens under 50 years. Road crashes cost more than congestion and pollution, or cancer and […]
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 […]