ESC deployment progress discussed in Versailles

Speaking at the recent ‘Prevent’ Intelligent Cars Conference in Versailles, France Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for the Information Society and Media insisted that Europeans should “benefit from these winning technologies sooner rather than later."

Also speaking in Versailles, FIA Foundation Director General David Ward said it is important that ESC is made as widely available as possible. "There are still too many deaths on our roads and we are at risk of missing the EU target to reduce road fatalities by 50% by 2010.  It cannot be right that ESC is still not available on all new cars. We want the car manufacturers to make ESC available in all models in all markets. Anyone buying a car today should always choose ESC."

David Ward presented some of the key challenges for ESC deployment in Europe. He mentioned incentives as one of the tools to accelerate take up of life saving technologies as ESC. He referred to the situation in Denmark were fiscal incentives have boosted the sale of ESC in new cars leaving Denmark on the top of the global ESC availability list. Anders Lie from the Swedish Road Administration presented the Swedish approach where the public sector and fleet owners have been working closely together to secure an exceptional high take up rate of ESC and other eSafety technologies in Sweden leaving them right after Denmark on the list of countries with the highest availability of ESC.