New EU Vehicle Safety Initiative

Last month, the European Commission announced a major package of road safety measures including new targets to cut road deaths and serious injuries in half by 2030. The overall objective is to allow all Europeans to benefit from safer traffic, less polluting vehicles and more advanced technological solutions, while supporting the competitiveness of the EU industry.

To this end, the Commission’s initiatives include an integrated policy for the future of road safety with measures for vehicles and infrastructure safety; the first ever CO2 standards for heavy-duty vehicles; a strategic Action Plan for the development and manufacturing of batteries in Europe and a forward-looking strategy on connected and automated mobility. World’s most advanced new car safety standards will make life-saving technologies such as Automated Emergency Braking and overridable Intelligent Speed Assistance a standard feature on all new vehicles; currently these features are only available as an option on some models.

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), the independent transport safety advocates, warmly welcomed the package of measures announced by the European Commission to help reduce the 25,000 deaths that occur on EU roads annually. The announcement of the Commission represents the biggest step forward in road safety in Europe since the introduction of the seat belt.  Road traffic injury is still the number one killer of young people across the continent so these essential measures cannot come soon enough. However, ETSC underlines that it is absolutely crucial that EU Member States and the European Parliament give their backing to the plans and that they do not give in to pressure from car manufacturers, who are already attempting to weaken parts of the vehicle safety proposal.

Read the full press release here: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-3708_en.htm