As of 6 July, only cars with new safety equipment as defined in the Regulation can be put on the market in the European Union. The aim is to reduce the number of fatal accidents.
“After 6 July 2022, only cars with new safety equipment as defined in a regulation can be placed on the market in the European Union. According to preliminary statistics, there will be 19,800 fatalities on EU roads in 2021, a 5 percent increase on the previous year but 13 percent lower than in 2019, before the epidemic. The European Commission aims to halve the number of serious injury accidents by 2030 compared to 2020. The mandatory upgrade of standard vehicle equipment will therefore not only protect car occupants but also other road users.”
Cars must have advanced emergency braking, as 90% of accidents are caused by human error. There is a legitimate demand for cars to be able to brake on their own! The technology is now able to detect collision hazards with the help of a front camera, detecting stationary objects and moving vehicles! Later on, the system will detect pedestrians, cyclists, and possibly wildlife at some point. Of course, the driver will be able to override the automatic emergency braking by operating the accelerator and brake pedals. The question for me is how much the system will ‘spoil’ the driver’s focused attention!
The emergency brake light will also be a mandatory accessory, with an adaptive brake light (above 50 km/h), which will indicate intensive braking with a dense flashing light! At the moment, we try to replace this with the emergency flashers on motorways, for example, when traffic slows down so much – often for reasons that are incomprehensible – that traffic comes to a standstill!
The installation of a fatigue camera system is also a mandatory element. This will tell you the driver’s condition by eye movement and blinking frequency and warn you to rest!
On-board data logging facility, black box on board that cannot be switched off, to help you find out the circumstances of any accident as accurately as possible! The device stores information critical to an accident, such as the vehicle’s position, speed, the operation of safety devices at the time of and before the collision, the position of the brake pedal and steering wheel, and the status of seat belts. The data may be transferred to the authorities for road safety analysis purposes only.
In addition, intelligent cruise control and active lane-changing must be installed! This is activated when the engine is started, but unfortunately can be manually deactivated. The lane shifter warns the driver to cross the lane without a turn signal and steers the car back into the lane! This system can also be overridden!
All in all, it seems that accidents will almost cease to happen, if only, but the vehicles that were previously introduced to the market can still be sold, so it will take several decades before cars with only and exclusively such systems are on the road! Probably by then they won’t need a driver and maybe they won’t even roll…😊