|
|
Sign up for our newsletter to receive the latest news and information from publics.bg
News
World news
14.12.2018 11:51- The new ‘intelligent speed assistance’ technology uses traffic sign recognition and GPS satellite signals to automatically reduce vehicle speeds.
© Zaldylmg, flickr.com
The car industry lobbying group is attempting to weaken the EU safety technology proposals, The Guardian reports. Even though their own research predicts the new safety technology proposal would prevent more than 1,000 extra road deaths each year.
The European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) is fiercely opposing an EU attempt to benchmark a technology that automatically reduces car speeds to local speed limits. The group favours one that just sends speeding drivers a dashboard warning.
The Guardian additionally reports that according to letters provided, last month ACEA had to remove claims from its website that speed limit information (SLI) technology was “an effective alternative” to intelligent speed assistance (ISA) “combined with better enforcement and driver training.” This came after TRL, the expert consultants to whom it had jointly attributed the claim, said it was “not true” and “damaging [to its] reputation”.
Richard Cuerder, TRL’s director, said in a message to the European transport safety council (ETSC): “If every [vehicle] in the EU28 today was fitted with SLI instead of ISA, approximately 1,300 more people would be killed on our roads every year. SLI is not an effective alternative to ISA.”
Cuerder confirmed to the newspaper that ACEA had been made aware of the figures, and TRL’s objections to the claims about SLI.
Despite this, ACEA has continued to use the “effective alternative” phrase in its lobby material, and the wording has been inserted into nine amendments to the EU package now being proposed by three MEPs.
Antonio Avenoso, the ETSC director, told the Guardian: “These new vehicle safety standards will have a hugely important impact on reducing deaths on European roads. So it’s critical that the political discussion is not frustrated by misleading information.
“That a handful of MEPs are trying to copy-paste this into the legislation itself is very worrying. The price would be paid in lives lost that otherwise would not have been.”
None of the three rightwing MEPs proposing the amendments – Jacqueline Foster, Andor Deli or Massimiliano Salini – immediately responded to requests for comment, according to the report.
All world news
Interview 
Full text
Events 
