ACEA

Road Safety: Delivering vehicles, policy goals and partnerships to make roads safer for all

In the last 30 years, Europe’s roads have become far safer despite a three-fold increase in traffic. Huge investment in vehicle design and technology has driven down fatalities, and safety remains central to automotive product development plans. Making sure older vehicles are replaced with the latest generation of safer, more efficient models, is one way to deliver further progress.

Vehicle occupant and pedestrian protection is already of an extremely high standard. Crash mitigation technologies are at a mature level and accident avoidance/mitigation systems can make a further contribution to the reduction of severe accidents on European roads.

Manufacturers are currently investigating technologies that allow vehicles to communicate with each other and their surrounding infrastructure. Intelligent information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) will be key to the realisation of what is sometimes called full traveler connectivity.

Industry will work to ensure that applications and services are delivered on complementary platforms, a goal that will require close cooperation between the automobile industry, governments and other stakeholders.

This type of integrated approach, in which all stakeholders play their part, should be reflected in wider policy on road safety. As the High Level CARS 21 group reported, technology, driver education, road traffic law enforcement and improved infrastructure are equally important areas for focus. The industry will continue to make the case for an integrated approach in consultation with the Commission on its fourth Road Safety Action Plan.

Reducing fatalities and injuries on Europe’s roads is part of any sustainable mobility model. Thanks to investment by auto makers and other stakeholders, significant progress has been achieved. In the last 30 years, vehicle technology has helped halve the number of deaths, despite a three-fold increase in traffic volumes on European roads. A commitment to road safety remains central to all vehicle makers’ development plans.

However, safety is a shared societal responsibility underlined by the fact that 95% of all accidents are caused by driver error, such as poor anticipation, inappropriate reaction to a hazard and violation of road traffic laws. Combining further improvements in vehicle technology with complementary ITS measures, improved driver training, better road design and enforcement of existing traffic regulations promise the greatest benefits to society.

The industry will continue to call for an integrated approach to road safety in its consultation on the Commission’s Fourth Road Safety Action Plan. This will set a ten-year policy framework, commencing 2010.

A mutual concern for the industry and the Commission is a trend towards rising fatalities in new member states. Measures to drive fleet renewal, like scrap schemes, are to be encouraged since the average age of cars in some countries can be up to 14 years. Replacing less safe older cars from the fleet will help. So too will improvements in infrastructure, enforcement and driver education.

Auto makers’ journey

Passive safety systems have played a major role in casualty reduction. Technologies and design measures that limit the effect of a crash may be taken for granted today, but without improvements, like pre-tensioned seatbelts, airbags and curtains, and energy-absorbing crumple zones, the death toll on roads would be far greater. Most vehicles now gain a maximum 5-star rating on EuroNCAP crash tests and passive safety is reaching a level of maturity. More recently, attention has turned from occupants to vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists, with improvements in front-end design such as softer bonnets or collapsible mirrors. Research and development in active safety has also increased. Technologies designed to prevent an accident taking place, rather than mitigating its effect, like ABS, ESC and seatbelt reminders, are widely fitted as standard to today’s cars and commercial vehicles.

Systems referred to as ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistant Systems) are also increasingly common. These use sensors, radar and video imaging to monitor the surroundings of the vehicle; blind spot monitoring, ACC (active cruise control) and lane departure warnings are examples in-use today.

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The road ahead - ICT and ITS

In the years ahead, further technological breakthrough will come through interaction between driver, vehicle and the environment. Successfully implementing these Intelligent Communication Technologies (ICT) will play a major role in driving casualties down further, and the automobile industry is working to make this happen.

However, a collaborative approach is necessary to support an interface with in-vehicle safety systems to exchange information and reinforce operational strategies. ACEA will actively contribute to the Commission’s ITS Action Plan and will work to address issues such as the need for a user-friendly human-machine interface (HMI), as well as matters relating to privacy and driver liability. Innovation, creativity and competition will deliver progress in ICT and ITS. Manufacturers support standardization where it makes sense and where products and service are mature enough to generate a larger market. However, regulations must be considered on a case-by-case basis and subject to rigorous impact assessments.

• Member States should speed up efforts on eCall

Education and enforcement

Since the 1960s, commercial vehicle makers have offered courses that encourage eco-friendly, safe driving. Today, manufacturers deliver a wide range of training programmes promoting best practice such as anticipatory driving style and the importance of vehicle maintenance. Commercial vehicle operators are also required to undergo professional competence assessments every five years.

For many car owners however, learning to drive may be their only training in a lifetime of motoring. Inappropriate speed, alcohol and drug misuse, driving while tired and not wearing seatbelts might be some of the dangerous habits motorists adopt with insufficient targeting on education, training and enforcement.

ACEA welcomes the fact that more employers are embracing their responsibilities to encourage on-going driver training.

Consumer Campaigns

The industry is an active participant in the “Choose ESC” campaign, which creates awareness and understanding of the benefits of specifying the skid-prevention technology. More than 50% of new cars now come fitted with ESC as standard, and that number will continue to rise at steady pace.

Affordability is particularly important for consumers facing economic pressures at home, and additional electronic safety equipment often competes with comfort features for limited budgets.

It is important that buyers consider all the features of a car that best protect their families. The industry has therefore welcomed steps by the European safety consortium EuroNCAP to include ESC fitment in safety ratings for new cars, the first active safety system to be measured by the group.

Road Infrastructure

ACEA is a strong supporter of the EuroRAP road assessment programme. As part of an integrated approach to accident reduction, improvements in design, construction and maintenance of roads are key.

Issues like bottlenecks, blind corners, inappropriate speed limits and poor lighting, all affect safety. Unfortunately, in previous road safety strategy, the European Commission has tended to overlook essential infrastructure measures such as audits, impact assessments and safety mappings.

Manufacturers also point to the wealth of information available at local level, which urgently needs to be shared with digital map providers to fast improve the road safety database. On and off-board navigation systems, for example, could then include more reliable geo-referenced road speed data for drivers.

• ACEA endorses RESPONSE Code of Practice for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS)
• new eSafety Challenge 2010: Promoting advanced vehicle safety technologies

last updated 06/09/2010

 

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