Protecting pedestrians

Road crashes are the leading cause of death and hospital admission for people under the age of 45 years in the European Union. There are 40 000 road deaths a year, and the European Commission has recently set an ambitious target to reduce road deaths by 50% by 2010.¹ But meeting this goal requires the European Union to perform better as a whole than any one member state has to date.

Few road safety measures are better researched than those for safer car fronts to protect pedestrians and cyclists² (p 1145). This results from a 22 year old research and development programme coordinated by the European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee. The committee originally proposed car tests in 1991 and updated them in 1994 and 1998.³,⁴ These tests are an integrated package of four tests for impacts to parts of the body that are injured most often. The European new car assessment programme (www.euroncap.com) has already used the tests and provides information to consumers on the crash performance of new cars. None of the cars tested, however, has performed well enough to have passed the tests.⁵ Once the tests are adopted universally, it is estimated that up to 2000 lives and around 17 000 serious injuries will be saved annually across the European Union—at an additional development cost of only €30 (£19, $28) a car.⁶

Just as the European Commission was preparing legislation, following pressure from the European Parliament and Council of Ministers, Europe's car industry produced an alternative proposal for a voluntary agreement. As a result, the European Commission is consulting the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament on whether to accept the car industry's proposal to introduce legislation.⁷

The car industry's proposal comprises two phases of pedestrian protection tests and several other measures assessed by safety experts to be peripheral to the safety of pedestrians. The phase 1 tests—the only definite pedestrian tests in the agreement—have been roundly criticised by experts as non-scientific.⁸ The phase 2 tests air the possibility of adopting the safety committee's measures, or their equivalent, by 2010, subject to a review in 2004. But the safety content of this proposal has been closely scrutinised by experts in the leading research and non-governmental organisations and rejected for several reasons.

Firstly, there is no guarantee that the safety committee's tests will be fully implemented. Secondly, the car industry's own phase 1 tests are fewer in number and less useful than the safety committee's, and they offer a 75% lower level of protection against fatal injury according to the United Kingdom's transport research laboratory.⁵ Independent experts involved in the protection of pedestrians told the European Commission and the European Parliament that, in addition to providing substantially lower levels of protection, the phase 1 tests were not scientific. Neither were they a natural first step towards the safety committee's proposals, steering car design in the wrong direction for effective protection as well as being potentially hazardous.^9–11

The car industry's proposal even fails to implement current best practice. The Honda Civic, for example, fulfils over 70% of the safety committee's requirements (without using new technology) at an additional cost, according to the transport research laboratory, of only £6.50 (€10)—three times the level of protection that the industry has offered to fully implement in 11 years' time. Any initial savings would be offset by compromising long term safety.

Finally, non-governmental organisations in Europe argue that removing the opportunity for member states or the European Parliament to influence the detail on this key safety measure would be a backward step at a time when the European Union has promised more transparent policy making.

Opportunities to save lives have been missed for many years—around 20 000 lives in the 10 years since the safety committee's tests were ready. Twenty two years of public investment since 1978 have cost an estimated €10m. Even the United Kingdom, which has traditionally been progressive in such matters, has backtracked from its support of the safety committee, which it stated in a national road safety plan.¹²

Policy makers are putting industrial convenience before public safety. The European Parliament reaches its conclusions in plenary session in June, and its opinion is likely to be accepted by commissioners. Members of the European Parliament will promote the need for legislation, but the question is whether or not the persuasion of the car industry will lead them to propose legislation with all the loopholes of the voluntary agreement. After such enormous cost in lives, time, and money, the wrong outcome ought to be unthinkable.

Education and debate p 1145