Consumers International has joined the #STOPTHECRASH partnership

20 January 2016

Consumers International (CI), the voice of the world’s consumers, has joined the #STOPTHECRASH partnership led by Global NCAP, campaigning for the widest availability of key road safety technologies with proven real-world effectiveness.

More than 1.3 million people are killed globally in road crashes every year. This is being addressed by agencies and countries around the world, who are targeting the most important risk factors like speeding and drink driving, as well as focusing on crash avoidance through technologies which can stop crashes happening at all.

The #STOPTHECRASH partnership is addressing crash avoidance and car safety and urging both manufacturers and governments to uphold standard regulations. The need is for key crash avoidance technology to be in all newly manufactured and sold vehicles, which would go a long way to cutting global road deaths.

The safety technologies prioritised by #STOPTHECRASH for mandatory inclusion are:

• Electronic Stability Control (ESC)
• Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB)
• Anti-Lock Brakes for Motorcycles (ABS)

In particular CI, Global NCAP and the #STOPTHECRASH partners are calling on UN Member States, especially those with significant vehicle production to mandate ESC in all new models by 2018 and in all vehicles in production by the end of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety in 2020.

ESC is widely considered to be the most important vehicle safety development since the seat belt. Seventeen case studies between 2001 and 2007 have shown ESC to be highly effective in avoiding single vehicle crashes by approximately 30%. In the European Union, where ESC became a mandatory requirement in all new cars from November 2014 it is estimated that since 1995 at least 188,500 crashes involving injury have been avoided and more than 6,100 lives saved. In the United States, where ESC became mandatory from 2012, it’s estimated that more than 6000 lives have been saved by this crash avoidance technology.

ESC is now mandatory in Australia, Canada, the European Union, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and the USA. Argentina and Brazil have also recently committed to make the system compulsory. However, Global NCAP believes that the current ESC global fitment rate of just over 60% of new passenger cars and light duty vehicles is too low and wants this to be raised to 100% by 2020.

The UN now has available a global regulation for ESC which makes it far easier for countries to mandate the technology if they wish to do so. Some of the consumer organisations which makes up CI are already calling on their governments to regulate ESC on all new vehicles.

David Ward, Secretary General of Global NCAP said:

“We are delighted that Consumers International, the global voice of consumers, has joined the #STOPTHECRASH partnership. Consumer understanding and support for better safety regulation of vehicles is essential as is consumer pressure on car manufacturers to make available these life-saving technologies in all their markets - at a reasonable price.”

Amanda Long, Director General of Consumers International said:

“We are very excited to join the #STOPTHECRASH partnership with Global NCAP. The partnership’s advocacy campaign focuses on three essential crash avoidance technologies which are available, proven and inexpensive to equip. There is no reason for these technologies not to be fitted as standard by car manufacturers across the world today and it is shameful that it’s not already being done.

“Together with Global NCAP and our campaign partners we will work to ensure that by the end of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety in 2020, at the latest, these technologies are made available to consumers worldwide.”