Parliament and Council reach agreement on adoption of crucial vehicle safety standards
The European Parliament and the Council reached an agreement on the revision of the General Safety Regulation in negotiations last night. The GSR will make mandatory a set of safety measures for vehicles over the coming years. The agreement has yet to be formally approved by Council and Parliament. Final votes of approval will likely take place after the EU elections.
“Today’s agreement is excellent news. The EU demonstrates a strong commitment to improving safety on Europe’s roads. After game-changing technologies such as seatbelts and airbags, we will now see another big leap with solutions that help avoiding accidents in the first place,” said Sigrid de Vries, Secretary General of CLEPA, the association of automotive suppliers. The Council and Parliament supported all the safety technologies put forward by the European Commission in its legislative proposal. “We salute that the co-legislators pushed for an agreement in time for swift implementation,” added de Vries.
Automotive suppliers are providing active and passive safety systems with technically and economically mature innovations for all vehicle categories. However, the current EU vehicle safety standards were last updated almost a decade ago. The agreement confirmed the inclusion into the revised regulation of all proposed technologies, including tyre-pressure monitoring systems, intelligent speed assistance, accident data recorders, and direct vision standards for trucks, which will be progressively made mandatory for new vehicles over several years.
According to the impact assessment accompanying the proposed legislation, over 16 years, the revised GSR is expected to reduce the number of road casualties by 24,794, avoid 140,740 serious injuries, and provide an overall net benefit for society of €15.4 bn, considering lives saved and additional costs. The Regulation will accelerate the deployment of effective and cost-efficient safety measures, which are already available on the market, and will boost the competitiveness and global leadership of the European automotive industry in this sector. De Vries: “Most safety systems are developed and supplied in Europe. New safety requirements will therefore push forward European research and innovation, contributing to generate growth, jobs, and investment in the EU. They will also pave the way towards connected and automated driving, by increasing the market penetration of technologies that will be required for automated vehicles in the future.”
The European Parliament’s IMCO Committee is now expected to vote on the trilogue agreement in the coming weeks and the European Parliament as soon as possible thereafter.
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In: CLEPA News, Safety