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.

A 21 year old EU and national government funded research and development programme has produced four car front test procedures which, if adopted in EU legislation, would save many lives. The main elements of the test methods developed by government research laboratories across Europe (EEVC) were known in 1991, comprehensive test procedures have been available since 1994 and were further improved in 1998. Crash dummy parts used in the four sub-system tests represent an adult leg, 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.

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. Five sets of results show that current car designs do not fulfil EEVC pedestrian protection requirements and that legislation is needed urgently. A proposal for an amendment to an existing Directive was drafted in 1992, and a draft proposal for a new Directive has existed since 1996. A Commission proposal adopting the latest version of the test procedures as set out by the EEVC is awaited.

ETSC believes that EU legislation requiring safer car fronts for pedestrians and pedal cyclists on new car designs is one of the most important actions that EU could take to improve road safety. If cars on the road now met all these tests then up to 2,000 lives and 19,000 serious injuries to pedestrians and cyclists could be prevented annually. The socio-economic cost (eg. Medical costs, lost output) of the injuries and lives that could be saved would be 5 billion euro.