Filenews 8 July 2022 - by Evagoras Prokopiou
As of 6 July, the new Regulation on general vehicle safety entered into force, introducing a number of mandatory advanced driver assistance systems to improve road safety and establishing the legal framework for the approval of automated and driverless vehicles in the EU.
In particular, with the entry into force of this Regulation, on general safety, the Commission is empowered to complete the legal framework for automated and connected vehicles. Also, in the summer, the Commission will adopt technical rules for the approval of driverless vehicles. The most important thing, which is the main objective of the regulation and also burns us in Cyprus, is to reduce the number of victims of road accidents.
The rules that came into force
As of 6/7, the new measures, introducing safety features to help the driver, include:
• For all road vehicles (i.e. cars, vans, trucks and buses): intelligent speed control, reversing detection with a camera or sensors, warning of caution in case of drowsiness or distraction of the driver, recordings of incident data, as well as an emergency stop signal;
• For cars and vans: Additional features such as lane-keeping systems and automatic braking;
• For buses and trucks: technologies to better identify potential blind spots, warnings to prevent collisions with pedestrians or cyclists and tyre pressure monitoring systems.
The rules apply first to new vehicle types from 6 July onwards, and to all new vehicles from 7 July 2024.
What will change in the summer
The Commission plans to adopt technical rules for automated and connected vehicles this summer, focusing on automated vehicles replacing the driver on motorways and driverless vehicles such as city buses or robot taxis. The technical rules set out will establish a comprehensive assessment of the safety and maturity of fully automated vehicles before they are placed on the EU market. They will cover testing procedures, cybersecurity requirements, data recording rules, as well as the monitoring of security performance and incident reporting requirements by driverless vehicle manufacturers.
