‘Dangerous’ directive puts pedestrian lives at risk, warns safety campaign

Date: 05/12/02

By Peter Chapman

IF TWENTY jumbo jets crashed over Europe every year, the design of aeroplanes would be changed to meet the toughest safety standards, no questions asked.

But safety campaigners accuse the European Commission of failing to take similarly decisive action to save some of the 8,500 pedestrians and cyclists killed in road traffic accidents in the EU every year.

Most of the victims are children or elderly - hit by cars in urban or residential areas, close to their homes.

However critics claim the European Commission risks putting thousands of lives at risk by speeding ahead with a 'dangerous' new directive meant to make the design of car fronts safer.

The warning comes as the Commission prepares to launch a directive on 17 December forcing car companies to put their new models through increasingly tough pedestrian safety tests.

The intention is to reduce the annual death toll on roads.

But safety campaigners fear more lives will be lost because the new law will allow carmakers to opt for inferior tests - offering far lower levels of protection than are already technically and economically feasible.

Jeanne Breen, executive director of the European Transport Safety Council, said the Commission chose the directive route because MEPs and pressure groups doubted whether industry could be trusted to voluntarily meet strict tests developed by EU-funded research since 1980.

However, she said drafts of the new law show that the toughest tests - approved by the European Enhanced Vehicle Safety Committee (EEVC) - may never be fully imposed.

Firms would initially be given a choice: passing the EEVC tests or an alternative suggested by industry. She claims the latter would be a less stringent hurdle.

'These tests have been criticised by scientists as being technically defective - achieving only 30% of the fatality protection [of the EEVC test].'

Under the directive, a 'feasibility study' would be carried out in 2004 to check whether the tougher EEVC tests should be the long-term goal - or whether car companies could opt for a new industry test, taking technical progress in car making into account.

But Breen says the EEVC already allows for the testing of new technologies - such as 'pop-up bonnets'. Its pedestrian tests are already part of the array of crash-tests deployed by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) led by Max Mosely, president of the International Automobile Federation (FIA).

Breen claims that Erkki Liikanen, the enterprise commissioner, has sidelined the safety group and its ally, the European consumer group BEUC, from debating the content of the directive.

'While the car industry has been much consulted on this draft, the advice of European safety and consumer organisations has not been sought at all,' she said in a letter to Commission President Romano Prodi.

Safety campaigners insist setting the toughest rules from the outset is the best way to ensure car firms actually deliver benefits. Breen said the car industry continually resisted legislation imposing tests for protecting car occupants. But after laws were passed, firms 'went on to design very quickly and with great ease and in advance of the lead time to that legislation'.

The same could be true of pedestrian safety, she claims. Japanese manufacturer Honda has already met 80% of the EEVC test requirements at a cost of just €10 per car.

Per Haugaard, spokesman for Liikanen, said Breen was wrong to say that the Commission was turning its back on pedestrians - and wrong to say that it was ignoring her group's views.

'I reject these comments. There have been public hearings on this and a debate in Parliament. We are taking full account of the comments of the Parliament and will present a directive by the end of December which will basically reflect what has been required by the organisation that you are referring to. We are highly concerned about safety of pedestrians.

'We have been working hard on this issue to get a good and well balanced solution that is feasible for industry so that we can deliver concrete results very quickly.'

Critics claim the European Commission risks putting thousands of lives at risk by speeding ahead with a 'dangerous' new directive meant to make the design of car fronts safer.