Explanatory Memorandum to COM(2003)363 - Amendment of Council Directive 77/541/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to safety belts and restraint systems of motor vehicles - Main contents
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dossier | COM(2003)363 - Amendment of Council Directive 77/541/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to safety belts and ... |
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source | COM(2003)363 ![]() |
date | 20-06-2003 |
The Commission is proposing to amend three Directives with a view to imposing the fitting of safety belts in all motor vehicles other than passenger cars i.
Only passenger cars i are currently required by Community laws to be fitted with safety belts.
The following Directives concern the installation of safety belts in relation to vehicles :
- Council Directive 77/541/EEC of 28 June 1977 i, as last amended by Commission Directive 2000/3/EC i, on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to safety belts and restraint systems of motor vehicles;
- Council Directive 76/115/EEC of 18 December 1975 i, as last amended by Commission Directive 96/38/EC i, on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to anchorages for motor-vehicles safety belts;
- Council Directive 74/408/EEC of 22 July 1974 i, as last amended by Commission Directive 96/37/EC i, relating to motor vehicles with regard to the seats, their anchorages and head restraints.
These Directives already contain all the necessary technical prescriptions allowing manufacturers to comply with relevant installation provisions. Up to now, these Directives are not compulsory in the case of vehicles other than passenger cars and Member States are free to decide of their implementation by national laws.
With a view to the compulsory installation of safety belts in all vehicles, the Commission is proposing to amend the three Directives simultaneously. Taking into account that the final objective of the proposed action is to improve road safety, a firm link has to be established between them. Consequently they should be adopted at the same time and be implemented at the same date.
Contents
- 2. Legal basis
- 3. Background
- 4. technical aspects
- 5. Subsidiarity
- 6. Involvement of interested parties
- 6.1. Position of the Member States
- 6.2. Position of the non-governmental organisations
- 6.3. Position of the industry
- 7. content of the proposal
- 7.1. Article 1 : Amendment to Directive 77/541/EEC
- 7.2. Article 2 : Implementation
- 8. Economic aspects : cost-benefit analysis
- 8.1. General
- 8.3. Costs for the installation of safety belts in coaches
- 8.4. Costs for the installation of safety belts in other categories of vehicles
- 8.5. Benefits
- 9. Conclusion
- Appendix
The proposed amending directives are based on Article 95 of the Treaty establishing the European Community. They are founded on the principle of total harmonisation, the purpose of which is to replace national laws and procedures that are liable to create barriers to the free movement of goods by a single, binding set of Community rules and a single approval procedure.
In this particular case, the installation of seat belts in vehicles other than passenger cars requires that manufacturers develop the appropriate technology to provide occupants with the highest degree of protection. Relevant provisions for such purposes are already present in the Community legislation.
In the interests of the good functioning of the internal market, these Directives must be made compulsory within the Community and implemented at the same date. Only such concerted action can contribute to ensure the proper functioning of the internal market.
Improving road safety is an important issue, which concerns every citizen within the European Union. The European Parliament, in a report dated 9 December 2002, considers that transport safety in Europe should be the top-priority and that measures likely to contribute to reducing road deaths and serious injuries should be identified i.
The Commission in its White Paper 'European Transport Policy for 2010 - Time To Decide' recalls indeed :
"The price paid for mobility in Europe is still far too high. Since 1970, for example, more than 1.64 Mio of our citizens have been killed on the road [...]. In 2000, road accidents killed over 40 000 people in the European Union and injured more than 1.7 Mio [...] One person in three will be injured in an accident at some point in their lives." i
Amongst the measures envisaged by the Commission is included the extension of the use of the safety belts, where fitted in vehicles. Up to now, the compulsory use of restraint systems is required in light vehicles, where fitted, by Council Directive 91/671/EEC i. Front and rear seats of vehicles belonging to the category M1, front seats of vehicles belonging to category N1 and certain M2 vehicles are concerned but in no case, heavy vehicles.
The European Parliament and the Council are in the process of adopting an amendment to Directive 91/671/EEC, which would require the compulsory use of safety belts in all vehicles where fitted.
To make these measures much more effective in terms of occupant protection, action needs to be undertaken to require manufacturers to fit seats with safety belts in all motor vehicles and in coaches more specifically.
Annually, an average of 150 passengers travelling in coaches and minibuses are killed and more than 30 000 persons are injured i in road accidents throughout the European Union. The vast majority of these fatalities occur because the passengers are violently thrown around within the confines of the vehicle or even more seriously ejected from the vehicle through the broken windows. It is worth noting that most of the coaches involved in an accident will finally overturn on their side.
A lot of studies have demonstrated over time that wearing a safety belt can contribute to decrease significantly the number of people killed. In Sweden for example where 95% of passenger car occupants wear seat belt, half of all those killed in accidents were not wearing their seat belt at the time of the accident i. In cases of coaches, many fatally injured passengers would have survived accidents if they had been provided with and were wearing safety belts.
Recent improvements in passenger car safety have highlighted the lower level of safety in other categories of vehicles. In particular, most minibuses and coaches either have no restraint system fitted or single lap belts that offer limited protection. Tragic accidents have led growing demand world-wide for improvements in occupant protection for these vehicles.
A number of studies have been devoted to the protection of occupants of coaches and minibuses where the advantages of wearing safety belt have been described. However, very few studies are available in respect of commercial vehicles. In general, only the driver is present in the cabin, in contrast with the sixty passengers of a coach. It is reasonable to expect that the compulsory fitting of safety belts will help to protect drivers in case of accident.
Since 1998, Directive 70/156/EEC has been made compulsory for all new passenger cars. As a consequence, they have to fulfil a complete list of compulsory requirements including the installation of safety belts and/or restraint systems in order to obtain an EC vehicle type-approval.
While the Commission is already taking the necessary steps to extend the Community vehicle type-approval to vehicle categories other than M1,it will not be possible to implement it to commercial vehicles including buses and coaches, before 2007 on a compulsory basis. Therefore, the fitting of safety belts and/or restraint systems could only be imposed earlier through the compulsory enforcement of the separate directives covering that subject.
New passenger cars have to comply with Council Directives 77/541/EEC, 76/115/EEC and 74/408/EEC, which are included amongst the 56 separate Directives listed in Annex IV to Directive 70/156/EEC.
The situation regarding vehicles other than passenger cars differs substantially. In so far as no Community whole vehicle type-approval procedure has yet been implemented for these vehicles, Member States may decide to apply or not Directives 77/541/EEC, 76/115/EEC and 74/408/EEC on a national basis.
As said earlier, for these categories of vehicles, the compulsory fitting of safety belts may only be required by amending these three Directives.
Safety belt anchorages intended for heavy-duty vehicles including buses and coaches cannot, for technical reasons, be fixed into the body structure of the vehicle, as is usually the case for passenger cars, and are fixed to the seats. For this reason, compliance with the three Directives in combination is required since safety belts and/or restraint systems have to be securely attached to reinforced and standardised anchorages, installed in the vehicle in such a way as to allow the correct wearing of the belts. Moreover, the forces exerted on the belt by the human body in the case of an impact are transferred to the seat anchorages, reason why their strength should be checked under combined loads.
In this respect, a majority of Member States have already enforced the installation of seat belts in minibuses and coaches i as shown in the enclosed table.
Compliance with Directive 77/541/EEC would require the fitting of at least two-point safety belts and energy absorbing seats for all seats on coaches above 5 tonnes, three-point safety belts on all seats of minibuses of up to 3.5 tonnes, and either three-point belts or two-point belts and energy absorbing seats for all coaches of between 3.5 and 5 tonnes. Furthermore, in those seating positions where the passenger is deemed to have a higher risk of injury (for example a seat with a fixed table in front of it), three-point belts are compulsory.
Light-duty trucks of up to 3.5 tonnes in this respect are very similar to passenger cars. Therefore, the first row of seating positions has to be fitted with three-point belts with retractor mechanisms, with the exception of the central seating position, which can be fitted with lap belts when there is no risk that the head of the central passenger may enter into contact with the windscreen. Other seating positions may be fitted with two-point belts.
Medium- and heavy-duty trucks may be fitted with two- or three-point belts.
A distinction has to be made between coaches and city buses (including inter-city buses, which generally use the same seat configuration as city buses). Modern city buses, i.e. low-floor buses, are generally designed for standing passengers with a limited number of seats, which are either tip-up seats, for which no safety belt is required, or looking rearwards or even side-facing seats. For such vehicles, it is appropriate not to request the fitting of safety belts but to let Member States decide their individual policy, provided that, when safety belts are installed, they comply with the technical requirements set out in the Community legislation.
To date, no safety belt was required in the case of side-facing seats. The Commission is taking this opportunity to assess the possibility to make their fitting compulsory in the case of side-facing seats. At the time of the discussions regarding the Directive 2001/85/EC i relating to safety in buses and coaches, the Commission launched a study to determine which kind of safety belts could secure the passengers the most efficiently. The findings drawn up by the consultant have led to the conclusion it is preferable to ban side-facing seats from these vehicles with the exception of city buses i.
Finally, Directive 2001/85/EC has recently provided provisions to allow accessibility for people with reduced mobility in buses and coaches. Some special devices, which do not comply with the current provisions of Directive 77/541/EEC, will have to be fitted to secure these people. Consequently, it is necessary that Member States may continue to allow such devices on a national basis, as it was the case in the past.
The principles of subsidiarity and proportionality enshrined in Article 5 of the Treaty establishing the European Community have been taken into account. The objective of this Directive, namely the increase in road safety and the avoidance of barriers to trade within the Community, cannot properly be attained by the Member States due to the scale and impact of the action and may therefore be attained more effectively at Community level. This Directive does not go beyond what is necessary to reach that objective.
Member States have been informed of the content of these proposals via the Commission's Consultative Group, the Motor Vehicle Working Group - MVWG - that is made up of representatives of the Member States, the industry and non-governmental organisations. The majority of the Member States is supporting the proposals.
In preparing its proposals, the Commission took account of research work carried out by the consultant relating to longitudinal seating arrangements in Buses and Coaches, which concludes that 'longitudinal seating should not be permitted in those classes of vehicles where standees are not allowed and should be permitted in those classes of vehicles where standees are allowed subject to certain design considerations and the nature of operation of the vehicle e.g. whether it is local service, city bus etc' i .
These conclusions were not contested by the Member States.
No negative opinion has been expressed by representatives of non-governmental organisations. However the International Road Transport Union (IRU) regrets the ban of side-facing seats in coaches, which would imply the disappearance of cosy corners from luxury coaches.
In so far as the technical provisions regarding the installation of safety belts in all categories of vehicles are included in Directives 77/541/EEC, 76/115/EEC and 74/408/EEC, they have already been transposed in the national legislation of the Member States since 1st January 1997. All manufacturers have therefore developed appropriate technical solutions to comply with those directives.
The European Automobile Manufacturers Association has not raised any objection with respect to the Commission's proposals. However, it pleads for a reasonable period of time allowing the technical changes to be taken into account through appropriate validation and to be integrated in production schedules. It also requests that it be possible to waive some provisions of these directives in cases of small series production.
The proposal contains two main articles.
Article 1 seeks to define the vehicles of category M2 and M3 taking into account Directive 2001/85/EC on buses and coaches. This approach provides the appropriate means to operate a distinction between city-buses, inter-city buses and travel coaches.
A new Article is inserted in Directive 77/541/EEC to allow Member States to type-approve safety belts and restraint systems that cannot fulfil the requirements of Directive 77/541/EEC due to their particular nature. An example of such could be a special needs restraint intended for disabled people.
The proposed measures shall apply to new vehicles put on the market. It is proposed that they apply first to new types of vehicles and subsequently to existing types, in line with the accepted type-approval practice, as follows :
- 1st July 2004 : the date from when new types of vehicles belonging to the concerned categories have to fulfil the requirements of the three Directives;
- 1st January 2006 : the date from when all new vehicles belonging to existing types have to comply with the three Directives.
It is not an easy task to work out, with accuracy, the economic costs, which the measures laid down in the proposed amendments to Directives 77/541/EEC, 76/115/EEC and 74/408/EEC will impose on the construction of vehicles. A number of different factors have to be taken into consideration and their influence is complex to analyse.
Firstly, it should be underlined that since 1999 many recent vehicles other than passenger cars have been fitted with safety belts on a voluntary basis, the result of which is a lowering of the contribution required from industry. However, in the frame of the present appraisal, it has been considered that trucks and tractors for semi-trailers are fitted with safety belts, while coaches are only equipped where their fitting is required by national legislation.
The measures envisaged will find their most rewarding application when used in these coaches which are designed to carry up to sixty seated passengers, depending on the dimensions of the vehicle i.
Available data from accidentology studies show that the number of fatalities in coach accidents is more important in the two following types of accident :
- when the vehicle is involved in a frontal impact ;
- when the vehicle overturns on its side due to a loss of steering control.
It is important that passengers are efficiently protected in both cases. Therefore, the installation of safety belts implies that not only seats and seat fixations are properly reinforced, but also the whole vehicle superstructure in order to withstand the increased kinetic energy forces during the roll-over due to the belted passengers. The increase in kinetic energy amounts in this case to almost 50 %.
In many cases, it will be necessary to re-design the whole vehicle with a view to better distributing the energy within the superstructure, thus avoiding a situation where the deformation provides passengers with insufficient survival space.
In respect of the expected benefits, data from accidentology studies allow an assessment of the influence of the measures on the number of fatalities in the case of ejection. However, it is difficult to predict whether the severity of injuries undergone by the belted passengers when impacting the internal structures will decrease significantly. Moreover, it should be recalled that the compulsory fitting of safety belts will not ensure that all passengers would use them permanently.
Considering these assumptions, the cost-benefit analysis could definitely only be seen as an indicative appraisal.
8.2. Situation of commercial vehicles registration within the European Union in respect to the year 2000 i
The European industry is an important supplier of commercial vehicles. Due to the continuous favourable economic situation within the EU, the demand for these vehicles is very high and there is no sign whatsoever of stagnation. Most of the registered vehicles are produced in the EU.
The demand in commercial vehicles is properly measured by means of the registration figures within the Member States.
In respect of the year 2000, 2 515 003 new motor vehicles have been registered i, with the following breakdown :
- 263 151 new heavy commercial motor vehicles over 16 tonnes;
- 391 756 new medium commercial motor vehicles (from 3.5 tonnes up to 16 tonnes) ;
- 1 860 096 new light commercial motor vehicles (up to 3.5 tonnes).
Production and registration in respect of coaches and buses amount to a total of, respectively, :
- 36 593 new vehicles
- 28 407 new vehicles.
Regarding those countries where the fitting of seat belts is not compulsory by national laws, and assuming that the demand in 2004 in those vehicles is kept at its year 2000 level, it could be estimated that almost 3 500 new coaches would have to be fitted with safety belts.
By comparing the situation of the fleet in Germany during the period of time 1989-2001, it could be roughly estimated that 15 000 new coaches will be put into service to replace end-of-life coaches, which were registered when fitting of safety belt was not compulsory i.
As said in the preamble, to install safety belts in a modern sixty passengers upper-deck coach would require a reinforced floor and a reinforced superstructure. These reinforcements would be necessary to ensure the strength of the seat anchorages to withstand the forces acting during an impact.
Where structural adaptations are necessary, a substantial price increase, evaluated at EUR 35 000 per vehicle i, is to be expected but where no structural adaptations are necessary, the price rise could be estimated at EUR 1 800 per vehicle i.
Assuming that 3 500 new vehicles would have to be fitted with safety belts and based on an economic life-time of 10 years, it is estimated that total costs would amount to about EUR 3,6 Mio a year.
This is to be compared to the EUR 15.4 Mio a year relating to the 15 000 new coaches, replacing end-of-life coaches, which will be affected by seat belt installation required by existing national laws.
With respect to the other categories of vehicle, an average of three safety belts per vehicle would be necessary. A three-point belt with retractor costs approximately EUR 70 and a two-point belt without retractor EUR 45. This would give an extra cost of up to EUR 185 for one vehicle.
In respect of coaches, assuming that 80 % of the passengers will actually wear the safety belt, it is reasonable to think that 120 passengers could presumably have their life safe in road accidents.
Taking account that the economic societal benefit for saving one life is estimated to EUR 1 Mio i, then the potential societal benefit would be EUR 120 Mio per year when all coaches would have seat belt installed.
& Transport - Priorities in EU road safety progress report and ranking of actions COM(2000) 125 final.
It is still to be investigated how many seriously injured persons would have been better protected if they were wearing a safety belt. Up to now, it has not been possible to find realistic studies on this question. But it is reasonable to think that a significant decrease of incidence and severity of occupants injuries and social suffering will result from the proposed measures.
Keeping occupants within an overturning coach can be the key to their survival. Generally, most of them who are ejected will die of their injuries. Those occupants that remain in the vehicles as they come to rest will generally survive.
Similarly, more and more heavy- and light-duty trucks are involved in road accidents and a lot of occupants are killed because they were not belted due to the absence of any restraint system in their vehicles.
Although the price to pay by society may seem being rather high, it should be compared to the benefits in terms of reduction in injuries and deaths.
Fitting of safety belts in buses and coaches - Current overview of the situation within the European Union i
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