Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-25-Speech-3-180"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20050525.19.3-180"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to take this opportunity first of all to extend our sympathies to the relatives of the schoolchildren killed in the dreadful road accident in Kentstown in Ireland.
In its resolution on this voluntary agreement, Parliament called for legislation to be introduced to regulate the use of these frontal protection systems. The Commission’s proposal of October 2003 complied with Parliament’s demand, and I am delighted to note that the report of the Committee on Transport and Tourism comes to the same conclusion.
The Commission can accept all of the amendments proposed by the Committee on Transport and Tourism. I am therefore confident that this proposal can also be adopted, and at the first reading.
This accident, in which five schoolchildren were killed and 46 injured, shows once again that we need to do all we can to mitigate the consequences of such accidents for passengers. The proposals being debated today seek to do precisely that. Three of the proposals concern the safety of passengers in commercial vehicles, in particular on buses. The fourth proposal concerns the safety of particularly vulnerable road users in the case of collisions with vehicles that are fitted with so
called bull bars.
I should like to mention at this point that I have set up a high
level group under the name of ‘CARS 21’, which, by the end of this year, will be making recommendations on the shape of future legislation in the automobile sector. This will include an overview of those measures that should be taken on vehicle safety in the course of the next ten years.
As far as the three directives on the safety belt are concerned, I should like to thank Mr Costa and Mr Koch for their reports and for their efforts at getting these three proposals for directives adopted at the second reading. All three directives ultimately seek to make it compulsory for safety belts to be installed in all vehicles apart from passenger cars, where, as you know, this has already been the case for several years. This extension primarily concerns coaches. In the event of an accident, this provision should prevent passengers from being hurled out of the bus, which is precisely how the most serious injuries occur. This is only possible if safety belts are fitted and there is a requirement to wear them.
The Commission stresses once again that it is all the more urgent for these three directives to be adopted, given that the installation of safety belts in new vehicles must of course be made mandatory before we can introduce a requirement to wear them.
The only difference of opinion between the Council and the Committee on Transport and Tourism concerns seat arrangements. If we wish to make it mandatory for seat belts to be installed in all seats, then we find ourselves obliged to ban side
facing seats in coaches, because the types of belts currently available for such seats do not offer passengers optimal protection. However, if we were to ban them straight away, the market segment of so
called conference buses would be condemned to extinction. The proposed transitional period of five years will undoubtedly enable the industry to develop technical solutions that are better adapted to the various different accident scenarios.
The Commission welcomes the fact that the two rapporteurs, Mr Costa and Mr Koch, have managed to reach a compromise with the other bodies. The Commission can accept the amendments that have been proposed in their current form. This will, I hope, make it possible for the package to be adopted at the second reading.
On the question of frontal protection systems on motor vehicles – the so
called bull bars – I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Petersen, and the draftsman of the opinion of the second committee to which the proposal was referred, Mr Harbour, for their efforts to carry out a thorough and coordinated examination of this proposal. I should particularly like to thank the rapporteur for successfully building a broad consensus in favour of this proposal at an early stage within the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
Some years ago, the Commission sent Parliament a communication on pedestrian protection. It contained the voluntary commitment of European, Japanese and Korean car manufacturers, on the one hand to carry out a series of checks on new cars to make them more pedestrian
friendly, and on the other to stop fitting them with rigid frontal protection systems."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples