European Commission consults on ESC

The European Commission has launched a public consultation on outline proposals for a Regulation on Advanced Safety Features (including ESC) and Tyres. The Regulation will introduce a number of measures to improve road safety and help contribute to CO2 reduction targets. The main proposals would include Electronic Stability Control to be a requirement on most new passenger and goods vehicles.

In addition, it is proposed to use this Regulation to replace most of the separate safety-related Directives that come under the vehicle type-approval Framework Directive. The intention is to replace the technical content of these Directives as far as possible with equivalent United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Regulations, in line with the recommendations by the CARS 21 group and the following Communications.
 
Questions regarding ESC are:
• Do you support the mandatory installation of ESC for all categories of M and N class vehicles (plus trailers over 3.5 tonnes)? Should any exemptions be allowed?
• Is 2011 a reasonable target for a requirement for new car models to be fitted with ESC?
 
The consultation is open until 18 October 2007.

For more information, please visit

http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/automotive/pagesbackground/safety/consultation/index.htm