CALLS FOR SAFER CAR FRONTS FOR VULNERABLE ROAD USERS

Each year over 9,300 pedestrians and cyclists die on EU roads and around 200,000 are seriously injured. Most are hit by the fronts of cars in urban and residential areas and the majority of these are children and elderly road users. Most of these impacts occur at crash speeds of up to 40km/h.

Test methods for safer car fronts for pedestrians and cyclists have been available since the early 1990s, but there has been neither EU legislation (two unsuccessful attempts) nor industry action to make new car designs conform with these tests. If they did, around 2,100 lives could be saved every year and over 21,000 serious injuries prevented. The socio-economic cost (eg. Medical costs, lost output) of the injuries and lives that could be saved would be 5 billion euro.

Various cost benefit studies have been carried out in the last 10 years. Those carried out by industry or bodies with close industry links show that the costs exceed the benefits, whereas those carried out by independent bodies show that the benefits exceed the costs.

In a recent Brussels Press Conference Dutch MEP Pam Cornelissen (EPP) and UK MEP Mark Watts (PSE), together with the ETSC, BEUC, ANEC and the FEVR, took the Commission, Member States and the car industry to task for a sorry history of failed attempts at legislation and seven years of delay in taking life-saving action.

Concerned about the enormous human and social cost of any further delay, the MEPs and safety/consumer/victim groups called on the Commission to put forward a comprehensive proposal for legislation on pedestrian protection for new car designs immediately. At the same time the groups are appealing to car manufacturers to make the necessary changes to new car designs now to make them less aggressive to vulnerable road users.

Pam Cornelissen MEP road safety rapporteur for the European Parliament, said "Legislation requiring safer car fronts for pedestrians and cyclists tops the European Parliament's list of priorities for EU action on road safety. The Commission and Member States must act now to stop this needless carnage which is so costly in human terms and for society as a whole."

Mark Watts MEP "The research and development programme to develop the necessary tests funded by the EU and national governments has gone on for over 20 years. There is a sorry catalogue of failed attempts to introduce legislation, and pressure from vested interests has cost many lives. The talking and procrastination has now got to stop. We expect comprehensive legislation and without any further delay."

Francis Herbert, FEVR, (European Federation of Road Traffic Victims) said "Last month was the 6th anniversary of the death of my daughter, Marie, who was hit by a car. If all cars on EU roads passed the pedestrian impact tests now, then around 175 lives could have been saved and over 1750 serious injuries prevented just this month alone."

Jeanne Breen, Executive Director of ETSC, (European Transport Safety Council) said "European legislation on safer car fronts is now the single most effective action which the EU can take in the short term to reduce death and serious injuries for vulnerable road users. It would produce important safety benefits for every Member State."

Professor Adrian Hobbs, Chair of ETSC's Vehicle Safety Working Party in presenting the new tests said the legislation would involve very simple changes in car design and would not lead to large differences in designs on the road. And there is no reason to suppose that cars would be more expensive."

Jim Murray, Director of BEUC (European Bureau of Consumer Unions said "Most cars now on the road can cause horrendous and often unnecessarily severe injuries to pedestrians in a collision. Recent tests by the EuroNCAP consortium show that despite this, most manufacturers are still making little attempt to make their new designs of cars less aggressive. How many more people need to die before the EU and car manufacturers are convinced?"

Bruce Farquhar, Secretary-General of ANEC (European Assoc. for the Co-ordination of Consumer Representation in Standardisation) said "The EuroNCAP crash test results have shown that when the car industry is sufficiently motivated, and when there are marketing advantages, it can innovate rapidly to improve aspects of safety. We want to see industry apply the same commitment to protecting the most vulnerable road users. Industry has a duty to act ahead of legislation."

Commission's response

Responding to a question from Pam Cornelissen in the European Parliament, Robert Coleman, Director General of the Commission's Transport Directorate said he shared the concern about progress on pedestrian protection.

A Commission spokeswoman noted that legislation was being prepared but might be delayed following the Commission's mass resignation in March.

It is the Industry Directorate of the Commission which takes the lead in issuing proposals on vehicle standards. This Directorate plans further consultations with Member States before coming forward with a proposal.

ESTIMATED NUMBERS OF EU CASUALTIES SAVED ANNUALLY

A Commission working group had met in September to discuss possible safety improvements. ETSC had highlighted the value of risk assessments in and around tunnels to determine site-specific remedial measures.

	Fatal casualties	Serious casualties
Pedestrians	2093	16471
Cyclists	82	4567
TOTAL	2175	21038

The most motorised countries of the EU (and generally the car-producing countries) contribute the largest share to the EU total of vulnerable road user casualties and in general have the most to gain from safer car fronts.

EU PEDESTRIAN AND CYCLIST DEATHS AND ESTIMATED EFFECT OF MEASURE

	PED & CYCLIST DEATHS	DEATHS AS % OF EU TOTAL	ESTIMATED LIVES SAVED
GERMANY	1772	19%	374
FRANCE	1360	15%	324
ITALY	1297	14%	287
UK	1247	13.5%	319
SPAIN	1062	11.5%	292
PORTUGAL	699	7.5%	190
GREECE	496	5%	140
NETHERLANDS	341	4%	41
BELGIUM	275	3%	51
AUSTRIA	230	2.5%	50
DENMARK	156	2%	23
IRELAND	137	1%	35
SWEDEN	123	1%	24
FINLAND	116	1%	23
LUXEMBOURG	9	0.1%	2
EU TOTAL	9320	100.1%	2175

THE EEVC TESTS

he 20 year old EC and national government funded research and development programme has produced four car front test procedures. Crash dummy parts used in the four sub-system tests represent an adult leg, adult upper leg, adult head, and a child head and assess how well the design of the bumper, the bonnet leading edge and the bonnet top of the passenger car reduce the level of injury.

EEVC has set out in detail the test methods, injury criteria as well as recommendations for test tools. Independent vehicle safety experts from across Europe believe that all tests will need to be introduced and to the specifications laid down by the EEVC if the substantial scope for casualty savings is to be met.

The main elements of the test methods developed by government research laboratories across Europe (EEVC) with contributions from industry were known in 1991, comprehensive test procedures have been available since 1994 and were further improved in 1998. It has to be noted that the continual refinement by EEVC of the procedures has been made possible by years of political inaction on this issue.

EEVC PEDESTRIAN TESTS


Graphic provided by TRL

Since 1996, the EEVC-based tests have been used in the European New Car Assessment Programme (EuroNCAP), which provides consumer information ratings on the crash test performance of new cars. This information programme is partly financed by the European Commission, UK and Swedish Governments and international consumer and motoring organisations.

Five sets of results published since the start of this programme (see opposite) show that current car designs do not fulfil EEVC pedestrian protection requirements and performed poorly in the pedestrian tests.

NEW CAR PERFOMANCE IN EURO NCAP PEDESTRIAN TESTS

MAKE	MODEL	STAR RATING Maximum possible =****
PHASE I
Fiat	Punto	*
Ford	Fiesta	*
Nissan	Micra	**
Renault	Clio	*
Rover	100	**
Vauxhall/Opel	Corsa	*
VW	Polo	*
PHASE II
Audi	A4	**
BMW	3 Series	**
Citroen	Xantia	*
Ford	Mondeo	**
Mercedes	C-Class	**
Nissan	Primera	**
Peugeot	406	**
Renault	Laguna	**
Rover	600	**
Saab	900	**
Vauxhall/Opel	Vectra	**
VW	Passat	**
Volvo	S40	**
PHASE III
Audi	A3	**
Citroen	Xsara	**
Daewoo	Lanos	**
Fiat	Brava	**
Honda	Civic	**
Hyumdai	Accent	**
Mitsubishi	Lancer	**
Peugeot	306	*
Renault	Megane	*
Suzuki	Baleno	**
Toyota	Corolla	**
VW	Golf	**
Toyota	Avensis	**
PHASE IV
Audi	A6	**
BMW	5 Series	*
Mercedes	E-Class	**
Saab	9.5	**
Toyota	Camry	**
Vauxhall/Opel	Omega	**
Volvo	S70	**
PHASE V
Ford	Focus	**
Ford	Escort	**
Mercedes	A-Class	Not rated
Nissan	Almera	*
Vauxhall/Opel	Astra	*

EuroNCAP PHASE VI TESTS

The next set of EuroNCAP test results on 'family carriers' for pedestrian protection and car occupant front and side impact protection will be announced on 29th June by the EuroNCAP consortium in London.

HGV FRONT UNDERRUN PROTECTION

The Commission has introduced a proposal for a new EU Directive requiring all new trucks over 3.5 tonnes to be designed to prevent the serious crash consequences of the fronts of cars underrunning the fronts of lorries from 2003 (COM(1999) 32 final).

The proposal now goes to the European Parliament and Council of Ministers for discussion. If accepted,. it will be another legislative first for the European Union in the field of vehicle crash protection.

ETSC welcomes this first step in addressing a serious problem. The case for the introduction of this measures which ETSC presented to the Commission is set out below.

• Around 18 per cent of the car occupants killed on EU roads, die in car-to-truck frontal collisions.
• From existing truck designs, car-to-truck frontal collisions typically result in the car underrunning the truck, causing rigid parts of the truck to intrude into the passenger compartment often resulting in fatal injury.
• By fitting front underrun protection devices to heavy goods vehicles, about 1000-1500 lives could be saved annually in the EU.
• A new mandatory Directive, taking up the existing UN ECE Regulation No. 93 on heavy goods vehicles front underrun protection is necessary.