European Commission
Plans to revise EU infrastructure safety rules have been postponed a number of times. In this paper, ETSC presents recommendations for the upcoming revision of the road infrastructure safety management (RISM) Directive 2008/96 and Tunnel Safety Directive 2004/54.
The European Commission has today published data showing that deaths on EU roads fell by just 2% last year, following a similar decrease in 2016 and a 1% increase in 2015. According to ETSC analysis, the EU target of cutting deaths by half in the decade to 2020 is now very unlikely to be reached. The EU28 collectively reduced the number of road deaths by 20% over the period 2010-2017, far less than the 38% cut needed to stay on course to meet the […]
In this paper, ETSC presents recommendations for funding for road safety initiatives within the next long-term EU budget, known as the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). These recommendations should support work towards meeting the EU’s current target to reduce road deaths by 50% by 2020 and the new targets for 2030 as well as the long-term Vision Zero.
2016 was the third consecutive poor year for road safety: 25,670 people lost their lives on EU roads compared to 26,200 the previous year – a 2% decrease. But this followed a 1% increase in 2015 and stagnation in 2014. In addition, around 135,000 people were seriously injured on European roads in 2014 according to European Commission estimates based on the MAIS 3+ standard definition of a serious injury. Road collisions give rise to huge costs to society. A recent study estimated the value […]
The European Commission has requested that six Member States fully transpose into national law rules agreed in 2014 on roadworthiness testing for motor vehicles. The rules, made up of three EU Directives, should have been in place in all Member States by 20 May 2017. To date, however, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Romania and Slovakia have not – or only partially – done so. The Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia have not adopted, published and communicated to the Commission measures on the […]
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 […]
In positive news for road safety, new EU rules on professional driver training requirements will not include a proposed blanket exemption for lorry and bus drivers on journeys of less than 100km from the company base. That’s according to a legislative deal between the European Parliament and EU Member States agreed earlier this month. A major exemption, proposed by the European Parliament’s transport committee in an October vote, could have had a significant negative impact on road safety according to ETSC. MEPs had added […]
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 […]
Joint safety operations involving tunnel and open road safety experts are possible, useful and their costs could be low if well planned, according to the final report of ECOROADS, a pan-European project looking at possible synergies between tunnel and open road safety regimes. The EU-funded ECOROADS (Effective and Coordinated Road Infrastructure Safety Operations) project aimed to overcome the barrier established by interpretation of two separate sets of European rules on road infrastructure safety management and tunnel safety inspections. The current rules do not require […]
European Union transport ministers have formally agreed to set a target of halving the number of serious injuries on roads in the EU by 2030 from their 2020 level. In ‘council conclusions‘ adopted today, ministers formally endorsed the Valletta declaration on improving road safety, issued at an informal meeting organised by the Maltese presidency on 29 March 2017. Ministers also called on the European Commission to come forward with a new road safety strategy for the decade 2020-2030. Antonio Avenoso, Executive Director of ETSC, […]
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 […]
More than a thousand bus, coach, truck drivers and their union representatives gathered outside the European Commission’s HQ in Brussels earlier this week in protest over fears that new EU rules will lead to shorter rest times and increased fatigue. The European Transport Workers Federation, a trade union, says the European Commission’s new Road Initiative , expected to be launched on 31 May, contains a bundle of measures meant to shorten weekly rest periods for drivers and extend their driving time. The ETF says […]
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 […]
The European Commission has published new proposals to revise qualification and training rules for lorry and bus drivers. ETSC welcomed the initiative but says the rules should be extended to van drivers and include elements on avoiding distraction. Data from 2014 show that 3,863 people were killed in collisions involving HGVs of more than 3.5 tons and 751 in those involving buses and coaches. But ETSC points out that more die in collisions involving vans, than with lorries (nearly 4,000 in 2012). Van use […]
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 […]
The European Commission’s latest road safety scorecard reveals, for the first time, estimated figures for rates of serious injury per million inhabitants broken down by country for 16 EU member states. The data act as a further reminder of the scale of the problem, with rates of serious injury dwarfing the numbers killed. The data is based on MAIS3+, a common definition of a serious injury now being used for comparison across the EU. EU transport commissioner Violeta Bulc told the European Parliament in […]
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 […]