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When Euro NCAP started crash testing passenger cars and making the information public in 1997, they had two central motivations: “To give consumers an informed choice when it comes to their safety and to put pressure on vehicle manufacturers to improve safety,” the director of strategic development at Euro NCAP Matthew Avery explains, ahead of the NCAP24 World Congress in Munich.
Nigh on 1000 cars have meanwhile been tested and, having become a crucial part of vehicle design, car manufacturers across the board now strive to get five-star ratings.
Looking at the impact this has had on road fatalities, Avery states: “By 2015, around 20 years after introducing the first ratings, which is the time it takes for a complete changeover of the European fleet, we saw a huge reduction of 65 percent to 70 percent in occupant fatalities. In just five years, the introduction of Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) systems, for instance, reduced front-to-rear crashes by 30 to 40 percent”.
The end goal remains significantly more ambitious however – Euro NCAP aims to help European countries achieve their ‘Vision Zero’ target and end traffic-related fatalities altogether.
In order to do so it is important to address not just passenger cars but also commercial vehicles. Heavy trucks weighing 7.5 tons and above make up just three percent of the European fleet but are involved in 15 percent of all fatal crashes.
Avery is very clear: “We will not be able to deliver Vision Zero unless we address these 15 percent of crashes. It’s absolutely key that we start to look at the safety of heavy goods vehicles.”
Trucks cover a lot of mileage and therefore have a high exposure on our roads, but there is another major factor playing a role in the high proportion of fatalities for which trucks are responsible. Many advanced safety technologies that have been developed over recent years and are available on passenger cars, have simply not yet been fitted on heavy vehicles.
“Because, at the moment, it is a free-for-all for the truck manufacturers beyond regulation. What we have now is some manufacturers offering some of the technology, but not all of it by any degree,” Avery explains.
Acknowledging these shortcomings, Ulric Långberg of the Swedish Association of Road Transport agrees: “The sooner we recognise that safety technologies on trucks lag behind those on cars, the quicker we will be able to reduce the number of fatal accidents involving trucks.”
Cont/....
Truck Safety Rating
Over the last 18 months, Euro NCAP has been working on a new truck safety rating scheme, which they presented at the NCAP24 World Congress held in Munich on 23 and 24 April.
“Trucks are a very different market to passenger cars, it is a new audience – instead of talking to consumers it very much becomes a b2b conversation,” Avery says. “The new truck safety ratings will be aimed at a multi-stakeholder ecosystem, consisting of hauliers, manufacturers, shippers, insurers and authorities.”
Avery explains the rating procedure will be intended to encourage vehicle manufacturers to fit innovative safety technologies, while also making sure that the technology is accepted by the drivers and hauliers. “These are often optional systems, unlike passenger cars, trucks are custom-made in order to fulfil a very specific role. It’s very important that the manufacturers are making the systems and technology available, and that the customers are actually buying it.”
A Volvo representative at the NCAP24 Congress also explained the importance of having truck drivers on the same page with regard to innovative technologies. While blind spot monitoring systems work very well and are fitted on Volvo’s state-of-the-art models, they only go as far as warning the driver when a potential vulnerable road user is detected in their blind spot. The technology could be combined with an AEB system, which is already present on the front of the truck, but due to drivers’ reluctance towards also having AEB on the sides of their trucks, Volvo is currently refraining from fitting this technology.
Euro NCAP will be focusing on the economic argument of safe vehicles and safe driving in order to have the most effective impact. “The freight business is very cost sensitive,” Avery emphasises, pointing out that “when you add 1000€ for technology on a truck, there has to be a payback".
"Euro NCAP’s process is actually providing that payback, because we are saying: we’ll make this information available, insurers can react to it, city authorities can react to it, and shippers can react to it,” he adds.
A tool for regulations
In 2022, the European Commission added new requirements for truck safety as part of GSR2 (General Safety Regulation 2), which forces vehicle manufacturers to put some of the basic safety technologies on board of the vehicle.
“GSR2 is something Euro NCAP can build upon, meaning we are not just giving star ratings for vehicle manufacturers fitting standard equipment, this is about encouraging manufacturers to go above and beyond,” Avery says.
In 2021, London introduced its Direct Vision Standard, which forces truck manufacturers to provide vehicles that have a certain level of vision for their drivers. You can’t access London’s roads with a heavy truck unless it has either good direct vision or it has safety equipment to address that.
https://euobserver.com/stakeholders