“Cycling and walking are fundamental pillars of sustainable and healthy transport,” the group says in a letter, stressing the need to protect the lives of cyclists and pedestrians with the new regulation, which could “significantly improve road safety, especially for vulnerable roads.” . “Users.”
The letter was sent by Eurocities and Polis, two organizations representing cities at European level, on behalf of Berlin, Copenhagen, Lisbon, London, Malmö, Osnabrück, Paris, the Stockholm and Valencia region and the Swedish Cycling Cities Network to their national governments. .
An ambitious direct vision standard for trucks
The group points out that trucks represent 2% of vehicles on the road but cause about 15% of road deaths. About 3,300 people were killed in collisions involving heavy transport vehicles in the European Union in 2018, nearly 1,000 of whom were cyclists, pedestrians and motorcyclists. Many of these deaths result from so-called blind spot accidents, where the driver does not see the cyclist or pedestrian. Today’s trucks have deadly blind spots, and there are currently no standards in place to regulate direct vision for trucks.
Direct vision is what drivers can see directly through their car windows. This is different from indirect vision, which is what the driver sees on the screen or in the mirror. Seeing something “live” has been shown to increase reaction speed and stopping distances of about 5 meters for a vehicle traveling at 25 km/h. An extra 5 meters of travel before stopping can be the difference between life and death.
In 2019, the European Union issued Regulation (EU) 2019/2144, requiring vehicle manufacturers to include several safety measures in their vehicles, including better direct visibility for trucks. Manufacturers will be required to improve their direct visibility “by reducing blind spots in front of and to the side of the driver to the greatest extent possible.”
Work is currently underway at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) to develop technical guidelines that will be used to implement the direct vision standard required for all new vehicle types by 2026 and all new vehicles by 2029.
ECF has attended these technical working groups along with other safety and environmental NGOs, and can attest to significant opposition from the automotive industry, which is trying to base specifications on some of the worst-performing trucks currently on the market, which are often built on Similar to vehicle designs from the 1980s.
Since such changes only happen every ten years or so, new legislation based on today’s worst-performing truck designs will mean we will continue to suffer from poor visibility into the 2030s or beyond. This would effectively impose weak and unambitious visionary standards for an entire generation. With all the deadly risks this poses to cyclists and pedestrians.
The message can be found here.
The press release from Eurocities and POLIS can be found here.
