Photo: customeuropeanplates.com
The European Union says that 25,300 people lost their lives on its roads in 2017, and another 135,000 have been seriously injured. Figures high enough to prompt the EU to call for the mandatory inclusion in new cars of more safety systems designed to prevent or mitigate crashes.
On Thursday, a piece of legislation calling for all new cars to be fitted with these systems passed the EU’s Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) scrutiny. This set of rules, if it survives the puzzling European bureaucracy, will impose new features for different categories of vehicles sold in the EU market.
Specifically, the rules call for the mandatory use of an emergency-braking system and a lane-departure warning system (already mandatory for trucks and buses) in new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles.
But the scope of the decisions made this week by the organization does not stop there. The EU looks to impose a much great number of safety systems on the cars operating on its territory: tire pressure monitoring system, speed assist, alcohol interlock installation facilitation, driver drowsiness, attention, and distraction warning, reversing detection, and the most controversial of all, accident data recorder.
“Manufacturers must ensure that these systems and features are developed in such a way so as to ensure that users accept them and that motor vehicles’ user instructions contain clear and comprehensive information on how they function,” the IMCO said in a statement.
The new set of rules does not yet have the power of law. After being approved by IMCO, it will head to the European Council to be discussed by the member states. No date when the rules will begin to be enforced has been announced.
The full scope of the safety rules planned by the European Union can be found in the document attached below or consulted at the following link.
Specifically, the rules call for the mandatory use of an emergency-braking system and a lane-departure warning system (already mandatory for trucks and buses) in new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles.
But the scope of the decisions made this week by the organization does not stop there. The EU looks to impose a much great number of safety systems on the cars operating on its territory: tire pressure monitoring system, speed assist, alcohol interlock installation facilitation, driver drowsiness, attention, and distraction warning, reversing detection, and the most controversial of all, accident data recorder.
“Manufacturers must ensure that these systems and features are developed in such a way so as to ensure that users accept them and that motor vehicles’ user instructions contain clear and comprehensive information on how they function,” the IMCO said in a statement.
The new set of rules does not yet have the power of law. After being approved by IMCO, it will head to the European Council to be discussed by the member states. No date when the rules will begin to be enforced has been announced.
The full scope of the safety rules planned by the European Union can be found in the document attached below or consulted at the following link.
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