Parliament and Council clinch deal to save lives on roads

The European Parliament and the Council agreed early this morning on new rules on type-approval requirement for vehicles. The new rules that will bring additional, obligatory safety features for cars, trucks and buses, will save thousands of lives on EU roads.

EPP Group MEP Róża Thun, who led negotiations on behalf of the European Parliament, said: “The safety of road users was priority for us. We particularly wanted to guarantee safety for those who are unprotected. This Regulation deals in the most direct sense with life and death.”

According to the new rules, all new different types of vehicles will get about 30 mandatory additional safety features or systems gradually from May 2022.

The new rules introduce an Intelligent Speed Assistant system that will assist the driver instead of just informing them of a problem. Intelligent Speed Assistance will give the driver feedback based on maps and road signs, and always when the driver exceeds the speed limit. “This will not only make all of us safer, but will also help drivers avoid speeding tickets”, said Thun.

“Every car will have important safety features such as automated emergency breaking, emergency lane keeping, an advanced driver distraction warning, a reversing detection system, an alcohol interlock installation facilitation, and an emergency stop signal, among others. This is all for the better protection of people in traffic”, underlined Róża Thun.

The European Parliament wanted all vehicles to be equipped with Event Data Recorders which will store critical crash-related parameters. The ‘black box’ of the vehicle will provide crucial information for accident analysis to reduce accidents in the future.

For big vehicles like trucks and buses, that often cannot see a pedestrian or a cyclist because of a blind spot in front of the driver’s seat and on the side, the new rules foresee design changes to give the driver so-called direct vision.

“The EPP Group has always supported innovation and these new rules are definitely a step towards the future, as they pave the way for the development of fully automated cars”, concluded Thun.

The European Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Members will endorse the agreement on 2 April.