The new Vehicle General Safety Regulation starts applying today. It introduces a range of mandatory advanced driver assistant systems to improve road safety and establishes the legal framework for the approval of automated and fully driverless vehicles in the EU. The new safety measures will help to better protect passengers, pedestrians and cyclists across the EU, expectedly saving over 25,000 lives and avoid at least 140,000 serious injuries by 2038.
As the coming into force of the General Safety Regulation empowers the Commission to complete the legal framework for automated and connected vehicles, the Commission will deliver this summer technical rules for the approval of fully driverless vehicles, making EU a pioneer in the field. These will help to increase public trust, boost innovation and improve the competitiveness of Europe’s car industry.
Executive Vice-President for a Europe fit for the Digital Age, Margrethe Vestager, said: “Technology helps us to increase the level of safety of our cars. The new advanced and mandatory safety features will further help reduce the number of casualties. Today, we are also making sure that our rules enable us to safely introduce autonomous and driverless vehicles in the EU in a framework that puts the safety of people at the centre.”
Commissioner Thierry Breton, responsible for the Internal Market, said: “Speed assistance, lane keeping and automated braking systems – our vehicles are increasingly automated. With the new vehicle safety legislation applying from today, Europe is making sure that this technology improves our citizens’ daily life, and that the automotive industry has a predictable and safe framework to continue rolling out innovative technology solutions and maintain its global competitiveness.”
As of today, the new measures introducing safety features to assist the driver include:
• For all road vehicles (i.e. cars, vans, trucks and buses): intelligent speed assistance, reversing detection with camera or sensors, attention warning in case of driver drowsiness or distraction, event data recorders as well as an emergency stop signal;
• For cars and vans: Additional features such as lane keeping systems and automated braking;
• For buses and trucks: technologies for better recognising possible blind spots, warnings to prevent collisions with pedestrians or cyclists and tyre pressure monitoring systems.
The rules will first apply to new vehicle types from today onwards and to all new vehicles from 7 July 2024. Some of the new measures will be expanded to cover different kinds of road vehicles until 2029.
Based on the General Safety Regulation the Commission is planning to adopt this summer technical rules for automated and connected vehicles, in particular focusing on automated vehicles replacing the driver on motorways (level 3 automation) and fully driverless vehicles like urban shuttles or robotaxis (level 4 automation). The new rules will align EU legislation with the new UN level rules on level 3 automation and adopt new EU technical legislation for fully driverless vehicles, the first international rules of its kind. The technical rules set out via a delegated and implementing act will establish a comprehensive assessment of safety and maturity of the fully automated vehicles before they are placed on the EU market. They will cover testing procedures, cybersecurity requirements, data recording rules as well as monitoring of safety performance and incident reporting requirements by manufacturers of fully driverless vehicles.
The Commission presented the revised General Safety Regulation in 2018. The rules addressed the need for improving vehicle and road safety, given that studies have shown human error is estimated to play a role in 95% of accidents. The European Parliament and EU Member States subsequently adopted the Regulation in November 2019. The Commission has since adopted a series of related implementing regulations covering the different driver assistant measures introduced by the Regulation.
The Commission’s proposal for the revised General Safety Regulation also accompanied the publication of the EU’s strategy on automated mobility, which outlines a comprehensive set of EU actions towards the deployment of connected and automated mobility systems. This foresaw actions covering the deployment of key technologies and infrastructure, putting in place the right EU internal market regulatory framework and ensuring that automated mobility brings benefits to European citizens.
