A new report has found more than 190,000 deaths and serious injuries could be prevented if crash avoidance technology became a requirement in new vehicles.
The study, commissioned by Bloomberg Philanthropies, found that 42,000 lives could be saved, and 150,000 serious injuries prevented by 2030 if all new cars in seven G20 countries were required to be equipped with the inexpensive crash technology, starting this year.
Thirteen G20 counties currently adhere to United Nations regulations on electronic stability control (ESC). The report , conducted by UK-based Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), said if the seven remaining countries—Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa—also mandated ESC in 2020, there would be an estimated $21.5 billion in economic benefit to the countries from the prevention of deaths and serious injuries. Argentina and Brazil are due to start applying ESC regulations in 2020.
“Our report helps countries see the impacts from immediately implementing mandated ESC regulations in cars and hopefully spurs action to save move lives and make roads safer,” said David Hynd, Chief Scientist at TRL.
According to the World Health Organization’s Global Road Safety Report of all vehicle safety features, ESC is regarded as the most important for crash avoidance. It is 38 percent effective in reducing the number of deaths in loss-of-control collisions.
ESC tries to prevent skidding and loss of control in cases of over-steering and under-steering and the cost of implementing ESC on vehicles that already contain anti-lock braking systems is thought to be as little as $50 per car.
In the United States, the first G20 country to adopt ESC regulation, government figures show that nearly 2,000 lives were saved by ESC in 2015.
