Representatives of the cities of London, Amsterdam and Copenhagen, Transport & Environment (T&E) and the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) have met Tomasz Husak, the head of the private office of Industry Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska, to call on the European Commission next year to bring forward an ambitious regulation on lorry safety.
At present, lorries can legally drive in towns and cities even though they are clearly not adapted to the urban environment. With their significant blind spots, lorries are one, and perhaps the principal, causes of pedestrian and cyclist deaths in some cities, several of the participants in the meeting stated.
The participants proposed a number of measures, including lowering lorry cabs and installing glass doors as ways of improving the line of vision and reducing reaction time. Indirect vision devices would be much less effective, Ben Plowden, Director of Strategy and Planning, Surface Transport at Transport for London, stated. He proposed rating lorries on a scale of 0 to 5 depending on the level of risk they present. Under his proposal, from 2020, any lorry scoring the lowest rating would not be allowed to drive in the UK capital, and, from 2024, any lorry scoring 3 or less would equally be banished from the streets of London. Another proposal would be to have freight that had been transported on long-distance lorries transferred to properly adapted lorries outside cities.
The Commission response was said to be at best lukewarm. It pointed out that it had to find a fair balance between improving safety and the needs of industry. Since 2009, road safety rules (Regulation 78/2009) have not been amended even though road death figures have not been improving (see EUROPE 11484). More worrying is that the Commission is only considering compulsory improvement in the line of vision from 2028.
The Commission stance presents two problems, therefore. In failing rapidly to propose a strict, uniform regulatory framework, it is hindering the development of lorries adapted for use in urban areas. “These lorries are more expensive, not because of the technology but because fewer of them are built”, it was stated. By increasing the number of orders, a regulation would, necessarily, quickly bring down prices. Equally, the longer the Commission takes to act, the greater the likelihood of cities going their own ways and ultimately making harmonisation much more difficult, the same source said.
The Commission is due to present a report on vehicle safety standards in late autumn and intends to bring forward a regulation in 2017. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)