New calls for vehicle safety

Members of the Transport Committee of the European Parliament have adopted a non-binding resolution asking for new vehicles to include a range of life-saving technologies.

Automated Emergency Braking, Intelligent Speed Assistance and Intelligent Seatbelt Reminders are included in the plan designed to get ‘more effective measures’ to reach the goal of ‘no fatalities’. Almost 26,000 people died on EU roads in 2016.

The members of the Committee also insisted on a new legislation to be proposed by the European Commission during the first quarter of 2018 at the latest, as mandatory safety standards for new vehicles sold in the European Union have not been updated since 2009.

Supporting the decision, Thatcham Research’s chief executive Peter Shaw said, ‘We fully support the European Parliament in its call for standard fitment of key car safety technologies like Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB). The imperative now is for the European Commission to publish its proposals and to enshrine it in a binding agreement supported by the UK Government.

‘Autonomous Emergency Braking can lead to a 38% reduction in real-world, rear-end accidents, but with just 30% of new vehicles currently on sale in the UK having AEB as standard, it seems that only through legislation will we be able to ensure that lifesaving technologies such as AEB or speed adaptation systems will become standard.’

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