Road safety in the EU has improved significantly over the past decades, thanks to strong and effective action taken at EU, national and local level to address road user behaviour, vehicles and infrastructure. As a result the EU roads are the safest world-wide. This increased safety can to a large extent be attributed to EU legislative requirements on safety of vehicles that have been introduced over these years as part of the EU policy on road safety1. These vehicle safety requirements were also a boost to European research, development and innovation: when industry was faced with more ambitious requirements it found the ways to respond with innovative technical solutions. Given that the EU was the first mover in most of these requirements, most solutions were developed in Europe and quality jobs were created here to respond to the challenges. In fact the motor vehicle industry is the main provider of private R&D in the EU, and has been setting the standards globally. The automotive industry continues to innovate and the regulatory requirements need to be revisited, with the aim to ensure that the EU continues to be in the fore-front of international developments, while continuing the work for saving lives. The impressive progress in the reduction of car accidents has slowed down lately, while the cost of road fatalities and injuries is estimated to be at least €100 billion a year2 and hundreds of families continue to be shattered every year due to road accidents. Active safety features and their technological development are leading to gradual automation of vehicles. They are considered as key enabling technologies to boost and support the wider automation of vehicles, contributing to the digitalisation of the internal market. The EU has, in the past, introduced mandatory fitting of electronic stability control systems on all vehicles and advanced emergency braking systems and lane departure warning systems on trucks and buses, which contribute to the reduction of fatal casualties in traffic by an estimated 5,000 a year. The full potential of these and further active safety technologies can only become reality with large-scale deployment in vehicles on EU roads. Several of these requirements also contributed to the reduction of CO2 emissions and therefore to comply with the EU targets on climate action and to the objectives of the energy Union. This was the case for tyre pressure monitoring systems for passenger cars that ensured use with optimal tyre pressures to reduce the rolling resistance and therefore reduce fuel consumption. The climate action targets for reducing CO2 in the transport sector also call for development of further vehicle technologies that incentivise driving in optimal conditions of fuel economy, e.g. through adaptive and intelligent speed adaptation and expansion of tyre pressure monitoring to commercial vehicles. With increasing levels of vehicle autonomy being a priority for car manufacturers, accurate, robust, durable and affordable sensor technologies are becoming widely available. These are necessary to fully detect the environment around the vehicle, contributing to safety, especially regarding vulnerable road users, and to the reduction of congestion and the ensuing pollution, given that 15% of all congestion in Europe is due to accidents3. In this Report the European Commission presents the findings of its analysis concerning a range of new safety measures. It proposes a way forward, with due consideration of the feasibility and cost effectiveness of the proposed measures. The detailed explanation of the measures is included in the Commission Staff Working Document annexed to this Report. These are the basis for a large public debate to which the European Commission invites all stakeholders. Finally, as a general framework the European Commission intends, with this work, to contribute to the priorities linked to growth, jobs and investment in the EU, promoting the most efficient innovations and retaining quality jobs in Europe, digitalisation of the internal market via the promotion of safety features that are considered the key enabling technologies to boost and support the wide-scale automation of vehicles as well as the Energy Union objectives of reduction of CO2 in transport. (Author/publisher)
Abstract