DRUNKEN DRIVERS will have to contend with more than the long arm of the law if a report adopted by the European Parliament makes it into law. MEPs are seeking the introduction of mandatory in-car breathalysers that would prevent a vehicle from starting in the event of a driver being found to be “over the limit”.
They are also calling for all cars to be fitted with an “e-call” device that would automatically call the emergency services and give the vehicle’s location once it had left the road.
The recommendations are among a range of safety measures called for in a road safety report adopted by the parliament. The aim is to cut road deaths across the EU by half, to about 17,500, by 2020.
Among the in-car gadgets recommended by the report is the “alcolock” which needs to be retaken every time someone sits on the driver seat to prevent drivers switching position with passengers.
The report also recommends the introduction of a range of satellite-enhanced detectors identifying inappropriate speed and sleepiness of drivers.
A number of EU states have introduced such devices on a pilot basis, while some larger car makers, such as BMW, have their own emergency call centre to which the vehicle will send its location in the event of an incident.
Also included is a plan to reduce speeds in towns and cities to 30km/h and to introduce measures to make it compulsory for pedestrians to wear high-visibility jackets on rural roads.
Also in the report is a recommendation to enhance the deployment of intelligent transport systems – overhead, roadside and radio messages advising drivers of a range of issues from weather conditions to travel times and crashes ahead.
The report urges the European Commission to ensure that road signs, highway codes and blood alcohol limits be harmonised throughout the EU by 2013.
Ireland West MEP Jim Higgins said yesterday that he included in the parliament’s report a section calling for an EU ban on texting and internet browsing while driving and a pan-European requirement for vision-testing. “In some member states it is currently not an offence to drive while using your mobile phone while in a number of states vision tests were not a requirement.
“We need a common cross-border approach to this. Bad driver behaviour doesn’t stop at national borders,” he told the parliament.
Mr Higgins also said the families of three young Irish women killed in road crashes had complained to him their daughters had been killed on stretches of road which were unfit for purpose due, they claimed, to lack of proper signage.
He said when a road was certified for safety purposes, “an engineer comes out, inspects his own work and approves a road as safe for use”, but “today the European Parliament has said that this is wrong”.
The parliament’s proposals will now be considered by the European Commission in drafting its legislative framework for road safety.