Commission sets out initiatives to reduce death toll on Europe's roads
The European Commission has no immediate plans to introduce legislation requiring the automotive industry to adopt new vehicle safety technologies, according to EU Commissioner for Enterprise and the Information Society, Erkki Liikanen. However, Mr Liikanen warned that if the deployment of validated car safety systems progresses too slowly, legislative instruments will be considered. 'Experience shows that if you try to legislate for new technologies, most of the time it fails. But the moment may come when measures become obligatory,' he said at a press conference in Brussels on 29 September. Mr Liikanen was presenting a new communication on so called e-safety, which outlines the measures the Commission intends to take to promote the development and deployment of intelligent vehicle safety systems. Such active safety systems will not just mitigate the consequences of accidents, says the Commission, but will help to completely avoid them. For this reason, the initiative forms a key part of the EU's efforts to halve the number of road deaths in Europe by 2010. 'From society's point of view, the accident costs of road transport are too high: The 1.3 million accidents per year in Europe cause 40,000 fatalities and 1.7 million injuries, at an estimate cost 160 billion euro. [...] New measures are still required to tackle this problem,' said Mr Liikanen. The Commission actions proposed in the document fall into three categories: promoting vehicle safety systems; adapting regulatory and standardisation provisions; and removing societal and business obstacles. In promoting e-safety systems, the Commission will make extensive use of the eSafety Forum and the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6). The experts and stakeholders that make up the eSafety Forum are asked to analyse existing accident causation data and suggest topics for research under FP6. Furthermore, the Commission pledges to provide support for the forum until the end of 2004, when responsibility will shift to industrial partners. The Commission would address standardisation issues, continued Mr Liikanen, by inviting the European standardisation organisations to identify priority areas for action, and by securing a standard EU short-range radar frequency for use by e-safety applications. In addition, the Commission will examine the available legislative and non-legislative actions required to accelerate the implementation of intelligent safety systems. Finally, the Commissioner pledged to target societal and business barriers, first by ordering a socio-economic study of the benefits of vehicle safety systems, and subsequently through the development of a European code of practice agreed on jointly by industry and society, and the preparation of industrial and public sector roadmaps for the deployment of e-safety technologies. Throughout his presentation, the Commissioner stressed that the communication was produced as the result of effective collaboration between industry, Member States and other road safety stakeholders, and that such cooperation would remain critical to the initiative's success. One organisation that embodies such collaborative efforts is ERTICO, a public-private partnership for the advancement of intelligent transport systems and services, whose chairman, Max Mosley, was invited by Mr Liikanen to give an industry perspective. Mr Mosley said that the support of the Commission, and Mr Liikanen in particular, is seen as an encouraging sign by ERTICO, but that the task remains a considerable one. 'Road safety is a very difficult subject to interest people in, which is very unfortunate as it is one of the biggest health problems currently facing society. The possibilities that exist to reduce injuries in the West are enormous, but it will require the full involvement of all stakeholders,' he concluded.